


they were a long hallway

by madanach



Series: he keeps it safe (hallway 'verse) [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexuality, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polygamy, Schweinski Holiday Fic Exchange, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:16:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2844257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madanach/pseuds/madanach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It didn't go away, not ever, not really.</i><br/> <br/>Basti falls in love with Lukas on a bitter-cold Tuesday night as Lukas sips Glühwein from a ceramic mug and wrinkles his red nose in Basti’s direction, illuminated by buzzing golden lights, smelling of laundry detergent and pine. The rest, as they say, is history.</p><p>Written for the Schweinski Holiday Fic Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2004 - 2009

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neukolln](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neukolln/gifts).



> DISCLAIMER: this is not the fic i intended to write. at no point while signing up for this secret santa did i think wow, i want to write an insane life-long introspective fic that is going to have an 11k first chapter and slowly drain my will to live until i'm staying up till 5am the night before christmas eve writing angry blowjob scenes.
> 
> also the other disclaimer, where i don't own basti or lukas and if either of them are reading this i apologize profusely and hope they can find it in their hearts to close the page before they get to the blowjob.
> 
> i'm not supposed to know who my recipient is, but i do, and she promised she'd love it so i'm just glad she has the decency to lie to me abt how coherent all this terrible sludge is. MERRY CHRISTMAS BB, THE OTHER TWO CHAPTERS SHOULD BE HAPPIER BUT I'LL WRITE THEM WHEN I'M NOT DYING OF PLAGUE AND HOPPED UP ON TOO MUCH NYQUIL.
> 
> in all seriousness, i know the timelining didn't work out as well as i thought and there are some (too many) sloppy parts and it's also, obviously, missing the next ten years, but i did put a lot of time into it so i hope some people read it and enjoy it and maybe it inspires them to google who felix is bc he's a cutie and important in the story of basti.
> 
> thanks in advance for waiting, folks <3
> 
> EDIT: timeline note, this was written between december 2014 and april 2015 so it veers sharply to the right after lukas' transfer to inter. basti stays at bayern and no galatasaray!

Lukas Podolski wakes him up at midnight half a week into rooming together. Basti is unreceptive to this idea — he’s only known Lukas for a couple of days, and he likes him, he genuinely does, but he needs to _sleep_ , lest he _die_ , and Lukas is making that hard to achieve — but Lukas chatters until he’s awake, throws a coat at him and drags him to the hotel roof.

“Look,” Lukas says, pointing to the tail end of the lake they can only vaguely see disappear behind the Kaiserslautern skyline.

“What the hell,” Basti says. “Did you drag me up here to look at boats?”

“Maybe,” Lukas says defensively. “Keep looking.”

Basti strains his eyes to see whatever Lukas does, pulls his coat tigher around him.

“Do you see?” Lukas asks. 

“No,” Basti says, “And I’m tired, and I hate you. We met like, yesterday.”

“Stop exaggerating,” Lukas says. “Look at the lights.”

 

Basti learns quickly that dragging him out of bed to look at the water is an exception, not the norm — generally, Lukas is a pain to get out of bed at all. He whines and pushes his face into the pillow and calls Basti names, which would be annoying if it wasn’t strangely endearing; Basti blames that, as well as the fact that _Schweinsteiger_ and _Podolski_ are already being said as one around the National Team, on the fact that he’s never gotten on with someone so quickly, so instinctively before in his life. 

Lukas is half-Polish, about Basti’s age and has the widest smile of anyone Basti’s ever seen. He lives in Cologne and Basti can forgive him that slight flaw because they click on the pitch so well it’s unreal, and it gives him a taste of power in a way he’s never known, until now always being the smallest, the youngest, the frailest. 

Lukas shouts, he shouts back. Lukas runs left, Basti kicks with his right and Lukas slots it in. Lukas jumps on his back on the way to the training pitch, Basti grins and pulls Lukas’ legs around his hips.

It’s just what happens. He never has to think — for the longest time, he doesn’t want to. 

 

They train together, and with the team, for a little over a week, and Basti can tell Lukas feels just as invincible as he; the friendly against Hungary looms over them. He doesn’t question how he knows so much after such a short time because he doesn’t seem to be wrong, and they come to bed restless the night before the biggest day of their lives.

“Is this really happening,” Lukas says. He’s taken the left side of the bed — he sleeps like a log, and doesn’t seem to mind that Basti kicks and speaks.

“Is it?” Basti asks. “I think so.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Lukas says. “Fuck. We haven’t played anything yet. I’m going to die.”

Basti giggles, bone-tired and borderline hysterical. “My heart is making so much noise right now, Christ.”

“I know,” Lukas grumbles. “I wish mine would shut up, let me sleep.”

Basti says some nonsense in a vaguely encouraging tone, turns his face into the pillow and hopes tomorrow doesn’t come too quickly. 

 

Hungary wins, but they feel like victors nonetheless. Basti claps Lukas on the shoulder as they leave the hotel, writes his number on the inside of his wrist.

 

He comes back to Bayern with the distinct feeling that he’s grown up, that with a national cap under his name he’s no longer the rookie. He’s wrong, as Micha and the others continue to remind him, but it’s a deserved point of pride that they do grudgingly give their respect.

Now that he’s tasted national play, he’s starved for it — he frets an agonizing amount about future call-ups although there are none for a good while, works his ass off in training in hopes that he’ll stay in Völler’s line of sight.

In the meantime, he talks to Lukas.

They started texting almost immediately after Kaiserslautern, and it became a habit entirely unintentionally. Basti wastes a disgusting amount of money on one-word back-and-forth conversations and he’s glued to his phone so often that Phillip has begun to ignore him when it’s in his hand, teasing him half-heartedly — the others rib him with full gusto, ask who she is, ask how long she’s had Basti under her thumb like this.

He doesn’t mind, to be honest. It gives him a sense of belonging on the team, and, besides, he knows he and Lukas go a bit overboard.

That may be an understatement, he thinks one night, as he throws his phone on his bedside table with a groan at 4 AM, Lukas’ _Sleep tight ;)_ the last thing his eyes saw before succummbing to the blackness surrounding him. He blinks, adjusting to the dark, and then burrows all the way under the covers and resigns himself to another three-hour night.

 

Transfer season comes and goes, Bayern keeps him on — thank God — and suddenly they’re facing Cologne in one of the first matches of the new year. 

Lukas looks much the same as he did in Kaiserslautern, and plays just as dangerous. Basti asks for his shirt with a wide grin and wears it home backwards, Lukas’ last name written across his chest —Lukas calls him later and they talk until they’re both yawning, Lukas teasing him about how thick his accent gets when he’s sleepy before telling him good night.

“You have a dumb voice too, don’t forget,” Basti says, smiling stupidly at his phone. Lukas laughs happy into his ear.

 

The Confederations Cup comes quicker than anyone thought. Basti feels like he and Lukas were fretting over call-ups one day and playing in Frankfurt the next. No one warned them of the rush, how thrilled they’d be, how high.

Lukas cinches it against Australia and Basti plays full time against Tunisia, although Argentina puts up a fight; they win their group anyway and Lukas presses his wide grin to Basti’s cheek after the game, says “Not half bad, huh?”

Then they’re in the semifinals, and it’s heady and addicting and Basti wants to do this _forever_ , holy shit, but. But Adriano scores Brazil’s third and they can’t catch back up. The illusion shatters.

Basti hates the loss with all the strength he has — it’s like he’s been robbed, and the way he feels low in his gut when thinking of how close they were isn’t something he’s eager to repeat.

“You have to lose,” Lukas says when Basti tells him this. “It’ll just make it better when you win, right?”

“Stop being so pragmatic,” Basti says, and elbows him in the side.

“Stop using big words,” Lukas retorts. “We’ll get Mexico, you’ll see.”

 

And they do. One goal each, like it was meant to be — Basti can’t see anything but Lukas, sprints towards him and feels like he’s been set on _fire_ , what the _fuck_ , in the best way possible, crowd screaming their names, Lukas’ estatic laughter in his ear.

 

He holds Lukas tighter than he’d like to admit before they say goodbye. There’s so much about him he’ll miss — the slow, lazy way he wakes up in the morning; his hand on the small of Basti’s back as they usher each other, in turn, to the breakfast table; his voice, calling Basti’s name with an audible smile at the end of the word. He’ll miss the way he makes him feel on the pitch.

He’ll miss the way he makes him feel, period — but he keeps quiet about that. Lies of omission don’t count.

 

By the time he’s gotten back to Bayern, Phillip’s already caught on: Basti’s phone buzzes and he checks it on reflex, smiles at Lukas’ sad attempt at clever humor.

“Who’s that?” Phillip asks, eyebrow raised.

“Nobody,” Basti says, wondering why he feels guilty.

Phillip says “Hm,” doesn’t push the subject — when Basti’s phone buzzes next, he says “Tell Lukas hi.”

 

Lukas calls him in late May when he’s already in bed. He stares at his phone in disbelief for a second — it’s a Monday night, who the fuck, why — but sees the caller ID and flips it open without a fight.

“Hi,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Basti,” Lukas says. “Basti, Basti, Basti.”

“Lukas, Lukas, Lukas,” Basti says. “Deep breaths. Calm yourself. Also, what?”

“Bayern made an offer.”

Basti drops his phone into the bedsheets.

“Shit,” he yelps, scrambling after it; when he presses it against his ear again, he hears Lukas laughing.

“Are you serious,” he says, almost yelling. “Lukas, the fuck, are you kidding me right now —“

“Basti,” Lukas says again, voice filled with glee.

“Holy shit,” Basti says. “Holy, holy shit.”

“I know,” Lukas says. “Basti, Basti, I _know_.”

 

Suddenly, transfer season’s all he can think about. Lukas is gonna be _here_ , in Munich, in three short months, playing for his team, wearing Bayern red. It sounds like a promise to him, of something great — of them making their names known, making sure they’re remembered — and together, just like Kaiserslautern, just like Mexico. 

If they call each other twice as much, there’s no one to know but them. If Basti gets used to hearing Lukas’ steady breathing when he falls asleep mid-sentence early in the morning, well, Lukas isn’t going to tell, is he?

When they get called up for the World Cup, Basti laughs until he can’t breathe. After everything, the nerves and the fear and the damned anticipation; after all this, he almost _forgot_.

 

Sommermärchen, the camera crews say; Basti agrees, and more. Here, they’re Schweini and Poldi — here, they’re Germany’s prodigal sons, joking and teasing and scoring goals, the bright youth, the future. He doesn’t quite know how to process that and thinks Lukas doesn’t either, but they’re only asked for honesty and so they give it with full aplomb.

It’s almost too simple sometimes. The game, yeah, of course, so rooted in _them_ that they feel it in the marrow of their bones, but also the skins they slip in to, the easy way they push each other. Basti feels like he could drown in the team as a whole but mostly wants to drown in Lukas, spends all of his free time fishing for laughs in a way he hopes isn’t quite as pathetic as it may seem.

Lukas scores against Ecuador and Basti grins so wide he thinks his cheeks may break; against Sweden, twice? Basti hisses _look what you did_ into his ear just to make him hold on tighter. 

He’s proud of Lukas in a way he doesn’t understand: a way that feels disassociated from himself , from Germany, from the burn in the pit of his stomach telling him to win and win and keep winning. He wants the World Cup and he wants that medal and he wants _Weltmeister_ after his name, but he’s familiar with wanting.

Thing is, he looks at Lukas and the rest is irrelevant compared to how much he wants Lukas to smile at him again.

 

Italy hits like a bad fucking dream, and suddenly, he’s hollow.

 

“I just,” Lukas says when they’re alone, afterwards, and Basti hates the despair he hears in his voice, just like he hates Italy and the World Cup and everything that ever dared to give them false hope. “I wanted it so badly, you know?”

Basti nods, the anger buzzing under his skin. He doesn’t think he’s ever _felt_ this strongly before.

Lukas starts to cry, hiding his face in his hands; Basti stifles his fury and presses himself into the curves of Lukas’ side, holds on.

 

They do, eventually, remember that they’re still young. In the bright chaos of Lukas moving to Bayern, they manage to forget their disappointment, remind each other that 2010 is four short years away. In 2010 they’ll be older, smarter, faster — in 2010 they’ll win. There’s no way they can’t. Basti hauls boxes to Lukas’ door the first day he’s in town and suddenly, Lukas sprawled out on the couch making faces at Basti as he struggles with only having two hands is a new and welcoming sight, infinitely more important than whatever happened in the past.

“So,” Basti says, following Lukas into his bedroom once Lukas feels guilty enough to start unpacking. “How do you like Munich?”

Lukas, sitting cross-legged on the bed, laughs. “Dunno yet. Haven’t seen much.” He points at the closet, indicating that Basti should put his boxes there. “You said I’d like it, though.”

Basti grins over at him, Lukas’ smile the twin of his own. “Yeah,” Basti says. “You will.”

 

The winter is cold and the snow paints Munich white, finds its way through the layers of Basti’s coat, nips at his nose and colors his cheeks. It outlines Lukas’ breath during their cold practices, and Basti revels in that, along with Lukas’ new address — a mere five minutes from his own — and the way Lukas looks in red, wearing Basti’s colors, as he sees it. Technically it’s Bayern Lukas plays for, not Basti, but it’s an insignificant distinction when he’s always the one Lukas runs to in celebration.

It’s suprising how little changes, now that they’re always together. Basti is used to Lukas’ late-night texts, used to calling him and hearing his grumbling voice through the phone too early in the morning; now, he drags himself out of bed early and knocks on Lukas’ door, winks at Moni and presses his cold hands to Lukas’ neck where he’s still curled under the bedsheets. He and Moni make small talk while Lukas dresses, and Basti waves back at the house as Lukas, still yawning, blinks at him from the passenger seat. They partner up in training from the very first day and Magath has to remind Basti that he’s not a striker, that no matter how much he’d like them to be, he and Lukas are different players with different talents and different jobs to do.

It does little to dampen Basti’s spirits. Just having Lukas nearby is enough — no matter what happens, the city seems bright.

He thinks he should have known sooner.

 

As it is, he falls in love with Lukas on a bitter-cold Tuesday night as Lukas sips _Glühwein_ from a ceramic mug and wrinkles his red nose in Basti’s direction, illuminated by buzzing golden lights, smelling of laundry detergent and pine. There’s no reason for it, and the realization is so forceful he feels like he’s been hit.

“Hey,” Lukas says. “What’s with that face?”

Basti looks at him like he’s never seen him before.

“Earth to Basti,” Lukas says, sticking his wine under Basti’s nose. “Drink up. You zoned out on me there.”

“Did I,” Basti says weakly. “I didn’t realize.”

He drinks what’s left of Lukas’ wine, directs Lukas back to the car with a hand on the small of his back. Lukas turns his face into the chilly wind and lets him.

 

A week later, after practice, Basti finds himself distracted by Lukas’ spine as he leaves the showers.

“Huh,” he says, not really paying attention — he’s seen Lukas naked ten thousand times, there’s no reason his unwelcome revelation should make it any more significant than usual, but he can’t help how his eyes wander. He never realized how fit Lukas was, or how shameless.

“I was talking about Cologne, Schweini,” Lukas says, pulling out the nickname like he does when Basti says something dumber than usual. He turns around, and Basti thanks God that he’s still wearing his towel.

Basti squeezes his eyes shut, then blinks rapidly.

“What are you doing?” Lukas asks. Basti can hear the laugh in his voice, squints at him.

“Be quiet,” he says, since he can’t say _trying to forget how your skin looks when wet_.

“Alright, weirdo,” Lukas says, pats him on the head and pulls on his shoes.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Basti tells him, and bangs his head into the locker door once Lukas is safely out of sight.

 

The thing is that he’s not, theoretically, opposed to the idea of liking men. He knows his share of gay guys — his best friend from his skiing days, actually, came out to him when they were fourteen, and now he’s almost as famous as Basti — and it’s never made sense that it should be that defined of a line. You like who you like, right? He figured it was always a possibility that one day he’d have a thing for another dude, that he’d deal with it when it happened.

It’s not that Lukas is a guy, it really isn’t. It’s that Lukas is _Lukas_.

He knows Lukas. Lukas knows him. They’re close, to the point of ridiculousness, and suddenly Basti is feeling all these _things_ he barely knows how to define. Butterflies and that choking warmth in his chest would have been enough, but now his brain starts asking all these inconvenient questions, like _could you come up with a good enough excuse to get him out of those jeans_ , and _how warm would his hands feel running up your back_ , and _isn’t he beautiful when he’s out of breath?_

It’s stupid and childish and dangerously close to every crush he ever had between the ages of nine and sixteen, except he knows it can’t be that simple. He intends to play football with Lukas until they can’t anymore, how could it be?

He resigns himself to keeping quiet; a lingering hope in the back of his mind says _ignore it: it might go away._

 

He calls Felix in early spring when the sleepless nights become too much to handle. He thought he was doing alright, keeping his pining to a minimum and acting like he never realized a thing, but this thing with Lukas has built up under his skin to the point where he doesn’t know where it stops and where he starts, if it’s something that he’ll be able to will away, if he even really _wants_ to.

Felix seems surprised to hear from him but not displeased, and they talk for almost an hour about training and ski qualifiers and Bayern’s chances for the DFB-Pokal, slipping back into the easy friendship they grew up with before Basti finally mans up enough to clear his throat and go for the heart of the matter.

“I have a dumb question,” he says.

“Shoot,” Felix says.

“A really dumb question,” Basti repeats. “Horrible. Mega dumb.”

“Yeah, go on.”

“How did you know you liked guys?”

The other line goes silent; Basti winces. He suddenly regrets calling Felix, resolves to ignore the inconveniently-labeled ball of warmth in his chest and go becomes a hermit somewhere far, far away where he doesn’t have to see Lukas’ stupid beautiful face ever again.

“Why are you asking?” Felix says, finally.

“No reason,” Basti says.

“You’re lying,” Felix says.

“Nope. Not lying. Just curious.”

“Who is he?”

Basti doesn’t answer.

“Just so you know, I’m glaring at you right now,” Felix says. “I knew I liked guys because I liked a guy. Do you like a guy?”

“Maybe,” Basti allows.                                     

“You do,” Felix states. He’s quiet for another moment, and then says, softer, “Are you gonna freak out or something? ‘Cause that happened to me. It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t,” Basti says, “think so? I think. I think I’m okay.”

“Good,” Felix says. “Good.”

They stay on the line for another minute, Basti hastily trying to stifle the feeling that he’s exposed himself in public, and then Felix coughs.

“Huh?” Basti says.

“Is it, like.” Felix says. “Is it, like, a sex thing? ‘Cause sometimes if it’s only sex you want. It can be easier to deal with, is what I’m trying to say. Considering your circumstances.”

“The circumstances being that I play for Germany and Bayern,” Basti says.

Felix makes an affirmative noise, waits for Basti to answer.

“Uh,” Basti says, and then, “It’s not. No. I think about him all the time.”

“Oh,” Felix says. “Okay, then. Good luck.”

Basti groans. “No advice?” He hears Felix shrug.

“What am I gonna tell you to do? I haven’t had decent sex in like, a year.”

Basti laughs, and then stops. “What, really?”

“Yes,” Felix says. “Welcome to the closet, it sucks. Do I know this guy’s name?”

“He’s our number 11,” Basti says, and hangs up the phone before he can make any more mistakes.

 

He spends the next few weeks in a disoriented, glum mood. He isolated the root of the problem and it made it, if anything, even harder to deal with; he can barely be around Lukas without wondering where he would put his hands if he pushed him up against the wall. As he thinks Lukas wouldn’t take kindly to that interaction, he spends most of his down time drinking, or jacking off, or both.

His favorite bar is a little place less than a kilometer away from his house — clean, modern, obnoxiously expensive, staffed by well-dressed men and women with friendly smiles who are trained to know when to shut up. It’s where the rich of Munich go to drink away their woes; he doesn’t quite count himself as one of them, but he can pay his tab, so it’s a moot point.

Sarah finds him on a night when he shouldn’t be there at all. He’s allowed a few on the weekends, but he’s found out no one’s the wiser if he stays hydrated and is smart about what he drinks. She sidles up to him at the bar, looking for all the world like she stepped out of a Vogue magazine, takes one look at his almost-empty glass and says, “What are you trying to forget?”

“That’s one hell of a pickup line,” Basti says, pleasantly surprised.

She shrugs. “It’s an attention-grabber.”

“You get many who go for it?”

“Not as many as you’d think,” she says, all sharp eyes and smiling mouth. “But the ones who do are usually the ones I like.”

“You’ve got this down,” Basti says; she laughs shamelessly, steals the last sip of his drink.

 

“I speak French, my mom runs a tailor’s shop, I wanted to be a scientist when I was a kid.”

“You don’t speak French,” Basti guesses, although he knows he’s wrong; he likes the smug grin she gets when he fucks up, watches her take another elegant drag of her cigarette before answering.

“False,” she says, drawing out the word, teeth flashing white. “I hate science. Your turn.”

“I’ve got an older brother,” Basti says. “I can’t write in cursive.” He searches for a truth and his traitorous mouth speaks before he can tell it not to. “I’m bi,” he says as casually as he can, gripping the railing behind him.

She looks up, as he expected, but has no clear reaction; her impassivity is unnerving.

“You’re an only child,” she says after a minute.

“I’ve got gorgeous handwriting,” he says in response. She cracks a grin, turns back toward the skyline.

She’s smoking on his balcony, wearing his T-shirt tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, entirely unconcerned with the wars being waged in his head — he barely knows her, but he feels lighter.

 

“I met someone,” he tells Lukas in the car on their way to practice.

Lukas, still half-asleep, blinks at him for a long moment. “What?” he says finally, voice just as heavy as it was when Moni dragged him out of bed and threw him at Basti earlier that morning. 

“I met a girl,” Basti says steadily. “I really like her.”

“Oh,” Lukas says. 

“Her name’s Sarah,” Basti says, looks over at the passenger side; Lukas is turned in his seat, exhaustion borderline visible but eyes sharp. Basti wants to reach for his hand, wonders what he’s trying to prove.

“She’s funny, and gorgeous, and she’s in Berlin for a while but I want you to meet her when she gets back,” Basti says, and tries to focus on the road.

“Alright,” Lukas says, and it’s so deliberate Basti wonders if it’s an answer he had to think about. “Congrats, Schweini. Show me a picture later,” he adds after a moment.

Basti lets himself smile.

 

He talks to Sarah as often as he can, starts his friendship with Felix anew, based on something a little more solid than their childhood skiing escapades; Bayern keeps his life a rush, but he stays afloat somehow, unsure if the way his gaze catches on the tendons of Lukas’ neck during practices serves to anchor him or just drags him under.

 

Basti answers the door at midnight, interrupted in the middle of a movie he was only mildly interested in, and blinks confusedly at Lukas’ face as he stands on his doorstep.

“Hey,” Basti says dumbly.

“Hey,” Lukas says back. Both of his hands are in his jean pockets, and there’s a small wrinkle over his eyebrows. He looks bewildered.

“Uh,” Basti says. “What’s up?”

“I,” Lukas says. “Can I come in?”

Basti nods, confused, and steps aside to let Lukas walk into the hallway. Lukas’ shoulders are hunched; he turns around as Basti shuts the door behind him.

“What’s,” Basti says.

“Moni’s pregnant,” Lukas answers quickly, too quickly, eyes round and incredulous, and searches Basti’s face — for what, Basti doesn’t know.

Basti opens his arms because it’s what he knows how to do. He doesn’t know how he feels, doesn’t know how to decipher the bombardment of emotions that race through his head at Lukas’ words. He can’t think about implications until later, can’t think about _family_ or _love_ or _the future_ until later; Lukas is shaking against him, hasn’t yet decided whether to laugh or cry, and he can’t think.

 

Suddenly, the baby is behind everything Lukas does. He laughs quieter, smiles less; Basti doesn’t think he’s unhappy, not necessarily, but he’s tempering himself, somehow, like he has to change for a kid that hasn’t even been born yet.

Basti’s bitter about it, in a stupid, petulant, selfish way. He knows it’s dumb to want Lukas all to himself, especially at this point in their lives, and he wants Lukas to be happy more than anything, but he also doesn’t want him to feel like he has to change.

It’s almost a test, when he shows up at Lukas’ house one evening, fanatically relieved that Moni’s not home, drugstore plastic bag clutched in his hand. “Want to help me do something stupid?” he asks, and waits for Lukas to tell him _no_ for the first time.

Lukas waits a second, but he smiles like he does when Basti calls him _Poldi_ — later, with Lukas’ fingers running through his hair, sitting on the counter in his bathroom with nowhere else to look but the steady heaving of Lukas’ chest, he feels grounded again.

“You look insane,” Lukas tells him, yawning, head on Basti’s bleach-stained shoulder.

“I look great,” Basti retorts. Lukas’ hands are blue-purple from the peroxide. It doesn’t wash off for days.

 

A part of him wishes that he could be jealous like a normal human being when Louis is born. As it is, he brings flowers to the hospital and talks to Moni in a low voice while she cradles the newborn to her chest. Lukas is out getting something or another and Basti has never held a baby this young before, so Moni shows him how to cup his hands and watches him fondly as he wonders how they can be so _small_.

“‘Cause they’re babies,” Moni says. “That’s their thing.”

“I said that out loud, didn’t I,” Basti says, looks up at her sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s just — he’s little.”

“He is,” Moni says, somehow managing to look maternal, exhausted and radiant all at the same time. 

“You can sleep, Moni,” he says, “I’ve got him.”

Moni smiles gratefully and turns her head into the pillow, mumbles “Wake me if he starts to cry,” before sighing and closing her eyes. Basti sits down carefully in the chair by her bed and stares, slightly bewildered, at the child he’s holding.

He’d never really thought about Lukas having a kid in the long-term. Most of it was careful congratulations and stifling latent jealousy that Moni would have something to tie her to Lukas for the rest of her life, which he kinda hates himself for, but it hadn’t seemed like an actual child aside from Moni’s baby bump and Lukas’ increasingly frantic disposition. He just didn’t _think_ — and God, he’s so small.

Now, holding Louis to his chest, hearing his faint breathing and remembering Moni’s trusting look just a moment before, Basti has the distinct feeling of trespassing. 

“Hey,” someone says behind him.

He barely prevents himself from jumping. He feels Lukas’ warm hand on his back before he sees him, and then Lukas is leaning down, pressing his lips against Louis’ head.

“Look at you, Dad,” Basti says teasingly. Lukas grins wide and knocks their foreheads together.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Lukas tells him. He squeezes Moni’s leg through the sheets — she doesn’t wake — and looks around the room for another chair.

“You could ask, probably,” Basti says, but Lukas shakes his head and settles down on the floor, back against the bed, right at Basti’s feet.

“You hold him for a while,” Lukas says when Basti raises his eyebrows in question.

“He’s really cute, Lukas,” Basti admits — Louis smacks his lips and Basti looks down at the bundle, crosses his eyes and then grins.

“Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Lukas says, watching.

 

The proud father is torn away from his son for a few months for Euro; Basti’s just glad that Lukas’ smile is back. He’s disgustingly fond of Louis, as it is, and a tiny bit in love with the image of Lukas curled on his couch cradling his kid, which is uncomfortably domestic but also just one of those things he’s learned are par for the course with being head over heels for his best friend. 

He never quite gets over the desire to apologize to Moni every time he sees her — figures if anyone would understand, she would.

What doesn’t make sense is how he can’t stand still anymore, like Lukas’ domestic bliss canceled something out and now he’s just waiting, waiting for something to happen, anything to happen.

At Euro, Lukas is the one guiding Basti. He grows familiar with the feeling of a calm hand on his back; Lukas doesn’t hold himself back from snapping sometimes, but Basti feels kinetic and the cards come one after another, first Poland and then his immense fuck-up against Croatia, and Lukas pulls him aside in the hallway after the game and cups his face in both hands, says “You need to slow down, Basti, please.”

Basti closes his eyes, nods, steels himself.

It’s not enough for them to win.

 

Sarah comes back with him after the final and stays, for the first time since they met. It’s a nice distraction, having her nearby — or it would be, if she wasn’t so good at reading Basti, a fact that he deems completely unfair due to the fact that they’ve been together for less than a year.

She’s smug as shit about it, too.

“Your girlfriend is you,” Lukas tells Basti one night, after the sting of Euro has been dulled by the new Bundesliga season. “You are dating yourself.”

“That is absolute bullshit,” Basti says airily. “She’s got a much better body than I do.”

“Well, no one’s debating that,” Lukas mumbles; Basti elbows him in the ribs and they both try to giggle inconspicuously, considering the setting — both in suits for a dinner with people who are somehow tangentially connected to Bayern, and Basti knows his tie is loose, but Lukas’ shirt is untucked, so he doesn’t feel too bad.

“Boys,” Sarah calls from behind them, and they turn around automatically. “Are you even going to pretend to listen?”

“Listen to what?” Lukas says, right as Basti says, “Wait, is someone talking?”

“Oh Lord,” Sarah says, rolling her eyes.

“Excuse me,” Basti says, vaguely insulted. Sarah pecks him on the cheek, pushes Lukas towards the front of the room and, when he gets an arm around her waist, pulls Basti behind him. 

“Pretend!” she calls at Lukas; he winks and darts between the tables to search for Moni.

“He looks good,” Sarah says innocently.

“Get fucked,” Basti tells her, and drops his hand.

 

Two months of her is not enough to forget; two years of her wouldn’t be enough, two decades, and he’s just glad she understands; she could be hiding something just as dangerous as he, as far as he knows, hopes she’s not for her sake — he knows he’s not the greatest boyfriend, what with the being-in-love-with-someone-else thing and all, but she hasn’t seemed to hold it against him so far.

“Keep your chin up,” she tells him, kisses him long enough to have to run after her taxi; that’s what he loves about her, he thinks.

He hates himself for how quickly he’s distracted. Once he doesn’t have his hands on someone, suddenly it’s Lukas all around him: Lukas’ pink lips; Lukas’ warm hands; Lukas’ hips, the bit of them he sees when his shirt rides up; Lukas’ back, exposed and trusting as he sleeps.

Honestly, he’s not sure why Felix doesn’t hang up the moment he gets the call.

“Hey,” Felix says, and Basti goes full-steam-ahead before he has time to lose his nerves. 

“If I asked you to, would you fuck me?” Basti blurts.

There’s a long pause. “What,” Felix says, voice blank.

“If I asked, could we fuck,” Basti repeats, feeling blood rush to his cheeks even though Felix is almost 90 kilometers away and definitely can’t see his face. 

“What brought this on?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Are you asking?”

Basti takes a deep breath and wills his heart to calm the hell down. “Yes,” he says shakily, when he trusts himself to speak again. “Yes, I’m asking.”

There’s another long pause, punctuated only by Basti’s thudding pulse and the static of the phone.

“I’m not Lukas,” Felix says finally.

“I know,” Basti says.

“Christ, Basti. Alright. Fuck, alright.”

 

Basti buzzes with nervous energy for weeks after their phone call, unsure if he’s excited about the prospect of fucking another man or just eager to get it over with. Maybe if he hates it his feelings for Lukas will go away. Basti’s never had a relationship with anyone that wasn’t sexual — he’s not really sure he could handle it. 

He thinks he hopes that he won’t enjoy it, hopes that he’ll be repulsed and magically never look at Lukas like that again, like getting his hands on another guy’s dick will make him love Lukas the _right_ way.

He hates that he’s doing it in the first place. He hates that he wants to be doing it with Lukas.

Lukas brings him takeout and video games the next weekend under the guise of having a boy’s night out; they spend it sprawled on Basti’s bed, kicking each other idly and eating Turkish food they’re technically not allowed to have until Lukas’ baby-induced schedule of sleep deprivation causes him to pass out on Basti’s pillow right before Basti was about to beat him at FIFA. 

Basti sighs, takes the styrofoam carton out of his hands before settling in next to him, resigning himself to early slumber and Lukas’ stale breath in his face while he sleeps.

He wishes loving Lukas would hurt more, so he could hate that, too.

 

Felix comes into town the first time they both have more than a couple days off, and Basti tramps down the stairs to greet him, obviously to put as much distance between them and Basti’s doorway as possible.

“Good to see you,” Felix says into his shoulder, grinning wide — Basti grins back, and Felix looks the same as he did when they were young, and just like that, his nerves are gone.

“I’ve been waiting,” he says, clapping Felix on the shoulder. “You took your sweet time.”

 

They wait until they’ve had a couple beers, as they’re both a little uncertain and Felix claims he has trouble getting it up to “your ugly mug, Jesus, Basti, I thought you were supposed to get better with age,” but then Basti ends up sticking his tongue in Felix’s mouth and then he quits objecting. It’s not as awkward as Basti fears; Felix mumbles something into Basti’s lips that sounds like _I’ll go first_ and crawls backwards onto the bed, shucks off his pants and reaches for the lube. After he watches Felix work himself open, way too pornographic to be his childhood friend, he understands a little bit better, dives in to kiss Felix deep and hard before Felix shoves a condom in his hand.

He doesn’t have to worry about getting it up, doesn’t have to worry that porn and fantasies won’t translate well to real life — with two fingers in Felix and their dicks rubbing together with every ill-timed thrust, he thinks he might be the hardest he’s ever been, actually, in his entire life, in bed with someone who he never even _thought_ about sexually until he realized that he was the only gay guy he knew who wouldn’t laugh him out of the building when hearing what he wanted to do.

Felix flips over, bares his back; Basti kisses down it and bites the muscle of his shoulder, makes sure to ask permission before pushing — _carefully_ , Felix reminds him, _carefully_ — in. 

“Fuck,” he breathes.

“Yeah,” Felix says, and then slams his hips back.

 

“Why’d you agree to this?” Basti asks him, later. They’re still in bed, Felix flipping idly through TV channels while Basti sits under the covers and presses his toes into Felix’s side. “You didn’t think I’d be any good.”

Felix looks back at him just long enough to raise an incredulous eyebrow. “You’re not the worst guy I’ve slept with by a long shot. Regardless of virginity.”

Basti grins smugly. “Thank you.”

“That being said,” he says, “It’s not like I got that call and was like, oh, yeah, I can’t wait to fuck that snot-nosed kid who used to beat me at sports. That insufferable dick, I bet it’ll be a blast.”

“So?” Basti asks.

Felix watches the TV for a while longer, and Basti almost thinks he won’t answer, but eventually he sighs and twists to look at Basti.

“You would not believe how tired I am of being scared of the people I sleep with,” he says.

Basti blanches. “Jesus, Felix.”

Felix shrugs. “That’s overdramatic, but you’ll figure it out on your own. It’s shitty,” he says, and gives Basti a sideways smile. “I figure I can count on you to at least not run to the presses with pictures of us in bed.”

Basti cackles at that, feeling relaxed in a way he hasn’t since this entire ordeal sunk its claws into his skull. “Yeah, Christ. I won’t do any of that.”

“Really, though,” Felix says, rolling over, — he looks more serious, now, although his cheeks are still rosy from afterglow and his fingers have fluttered down to a point beneath Basti’s ribs where he knows he’s ticklish — “You’re gonna need to sort out this thing of yours eventually.”

Basti narrows his eyes, bats away his hand. “There’s nothing to sort out. Forget it, you mean.”

Felix pokes Basti hard in the chest. Basti whines, glares at him, and Felix says, “That’s not what I said, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Basti says, and pushes Felix onto his back, climbing over him. “Let’s go again, shall we?”

 

Felix goes back to Partenkirchen half a week later, after he and Basti have fucked almost a dozen times and both of them are due back in training. He kisses Basti at the door and Basti bites his bottom lip, promises there’ll be a next time before shooing him into his car and winking as he drives away.

He spends the rest of the day feeling deliciously light-hearted, thinking about very little of anything at all, and wakes up early the next morning with the image of Lukas beneath him fading behind his eyelids.

“Fuck me,” he says, to no one in particular, and sticks his hand in his boxers.

 

In retrospect, he doesn’t know why he thought experience would make his issue any easier to deal with; now he’s even hornier than he was, which is a fucking feat in itself. Sarah’s surprisingly indulgent when she’s in town, but she spends more time than either of them would like in Berlin, and Basti ends up spending most of his non-practice time either with Lukas — who, in turn, spends most of his time being a hilariously inept but enthusiastic father — or in bed, cursing the inconvenience of his sexual orientation. He orders a vibrator and spends days staring at the unopened package in terror. Felix recommends a couple clubs, ones where people who can’t say anything about anyone go, but it turns out he’s pretty scared of those, too.

“What’s up with you?” Lukas asks him after practice one day, when they’re the last ones in the locker room. “You’re even paler than normal, which shouldn’t be possible.”

“Nothing,” Basti snaps, and Lukas sets his jaw; Basti rushes to backtrack.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m stressed.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says. “What’s really up?”

“I’m,” Basti starts again, but Lukas cuts him off.

“You don’t have to say, it’s fine,” he says cooly. “I was just asking.”

“Lukas,” Basti says, but he leaves without another word.

 

Catching up with him in the parking lot the next day, Basti pokes Lukas in the back.

“What,” Lukas says. “Oh.”

“Sorry about yesterday,” Basti says quickly, wanting to fix whatever he said before Lukas can think too much, before it can fester. “I’ve been a mess lately. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Lukas stares at him for another second. “Apology accepted,” he says eventually, and Basti, relieved, throws a thoughtless arm around his shoulders.

Lukas leans into him, asks, “Do you want to come over Friday night? We’d have to take care of Louis, but Moni has a baby shower.”

“Sure,” Basti says, chin resting on Lukas’ head. “Absolutely.”

“Good,” Lukas says. “I miss having you around.”

Something warm blooms deep in Basti’s chest. For a minute, he forgets the rest.

 

It becomes easier, slowly. Basti grows familiar with the feeling of sickness that lingers in his gut every time he goes out, trusts the men he’s never met to be as scared of exposure as he. And it’s good, it really is, although Sarah yells at him over the phone every time they talk to make sure he wears a fucking condom and Felix rolls his eyes at his incapability to keep it in his pants.

“This is your fault,” Basti tells him one night, still stinking of alcohol with the sense memory of another man’s mouth between his thighs. “Like, honestly, it’s all your fucking fault.”

“That is such a lie,” Felix says. “You’re full of shit.”

“I am not,” Basti says indignantly, but he kinda is. He’s also kinda drunk, and kinda horny, and kinda tired of his empty bed. “When are you in town next?”

“Not for a while,” Felix says. “Sorry. Ask Lukas to warm your bed.”

“I loathe you,” Basti says primly, and hangs up on him.

 

The rest of the season passes so quickly he can barely think — one minute they’re up against Rostock, and the next it’s Dortmund, teeth gnashing, wanting the Pokal almost as much as they.

They stay in first place in the Bundesliga with ease, and the Pokal final in Berlin is a fight well within their ability to win. 

Watching Lukas laugh so hard he can’t breathe, drenched in beer, wearing Bayern red; Basti files this away as one of the simple joys in life, an image he’ll always be able to call up when times are hard. 

No matter how much Lukas learns to hate Bayern, when it comes down to it, they gave him this, right? 

 

It doesn’t come down to that — it comes down to Lukas, sitting by helpless as Bayern flourishes without him.

Basti bears Luca no ill will, but he feels horrifically powerless — everything else aside, Basti wants the best for Lukas, wants nothing more than to see him shout in triumph again — and Lukas has done nothing to assauge his worries. He’s become quieter, almost withdrawn, and. It’s stupid, but he _laughs_ less, and Basti misses hearing it with a force he barely knew he was capable of.

He spends more time than he should at Lukas’, even though Lukas hasn’t been one for conversation; he plays with Louis, and offers to help cook, and talks to Moni more than he ever has before. Lukas disappears for hours without explanation and Moni makes coffee, lounges in a recliner while Basti curls up on the couch and pokes Louis’ toys with a bare foot.

“He’s unhappy, you know,” she says one day. “If he leaves —”

“If he leaves, what,” Basti says, setting his jaw — it’s not like he’s never considered the possibility, but it’s just that, right? A possibility. 

“Cologne has been asking after him,” she continues.

He knew, somehow, but it doesn’t make it sting less. “Why isn’t he telling me this?” he asks, something heavy settling in his gut. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “He doesn’t talk to me about you anymore, but he’d want you to know first.”

“Why,” Basti asks again, feeling like a broken record. He doesn’t really know what else to say.

She shrugs. “If he leaves, you need to be okay with it, yeah?”

“What does that,” Basti says. “What does that mean, Moni?”

He doesn’t want to be having this conversation, doesn’t want to even entertain the notion that Lukas could be far away again after the few short months leading up to transfer season.

She’s watching him with a look that’s veering too close to sympathetic for his tastes, and the coffee tastes wrong on his tongue. He sets the cup down and studiously ignores how his hands are shaking.

“I don’t want him to go,” he says.

“Basti,” she says sharply, and he forgets whatever he wanted to say, stares wide-eyed as she leans forward in her seat. “Basti,” she says again, deliberate. “He would run his career into the ground if you asked him to.”

All of the things he wants to say begin with _I_. He sees a bit of his own madness reflected in her eyes, and understands, for one shining moment, where she found sympathy for him of all creatures.

“I’m begging you, Basti,” she says, brutal and honest and beautiful. “I’m begging you, don’t ask.”

He stops coming over to Lukas’ quite so much after that.

 

He misses the weight of Lukas’ arm around his shoulder and nobody he finds in any club is good enough to replace that. Lukas asks him, making small talk, “Got plans this weekend?” and he bites his tongue, unused to lying about words that don’t sound like _I love you_.

 

“Does Lukas know?” Sarah asks over dinner.

Basti blanches. “That I — Sarah? What the fuck.”

“No, stupid,” Sarah says, “that you like guys too.” She spears a chunk of potato with her fork, points it at Basti.

“Sarah, there’s this thing called the closet,” Basti says, disbelieving. 

“You told me,” she says through a mouthful of food.

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re fucking,” Basti says.

“And Felix,” she says, reaches vainly for the bottle of water — Basti holds it out of her reach for a moment before grudgingly handing it over.

“I’m fucking him too,” Basti says. “What are you trying to say?”

“That, like,” she unscrews the cap and pours herself a glass before gesturing toward Basti’s empty one, which he waves away, “You might try telling someone who you actually want to know.”

“Uh. I don’t want him to know,” Basti says, taken aback. 

“Yeah,” Sarah says, watching him with raised eyebrows, and _fuck_ , she knows him all-too-well, “Why is that?”

Basti stands up and makes a beeline for the beers on top of the fridge — Sarah calls after him, “Basti, he’s still your best friend!”

He presses the cool glass against his temple and stands alone in the kitchen much longer than he intends.

 

It’s not a conversation he ever wants to have, really. _Hi, Lukas, just so you know, I’m way gayer than I originally thought — it’s cool, though, ‘cause I like girls too, even though most of the time I’m preoccupied with how much I want your hands all over me — but it’s not a big deal_. Something tells him it wouldn’t go over quite as well as Sarah seems to think it would.

Lukas is a good person, is the thing. Basti has no justifiable reason to be afraid of his reaction, after five years together, knows at least that their friendship is strong enough that Lukas won’t go run and hide even if he isn’t amiable to the idea. It’s not a rational fear.

When Lukas pulls him aside during drills, asks him quietly to dinner, the fear takes hold so violently he shivers. Lukas watches him anxiously. He plays it off as chills, smiles and says _of course_ before heading back onto the field.

“I want to go back to Cologne,” Lukas tells him over appetizers, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t expect it, but a knife twists in his gut all the same; he knocks his ankle against Lukas’ under the table and swallows.

“You get why, right,” Lukas continues, worrying at his lip. Basti wants to kiss the wrinkles on his forehead when he knots his eyebrows. “It’s not working out here.”

Basti nods, unable to speak.

“It’s not you,” Lukas says, like he’s been wanting to say it for a while. ”Basti, I don’t want to leave you.”

Basti’s hysterically glad that’s something he doesn’t have to ask.

 

The weekend after Lukas moves out, Basti lets the club lights blind him.

Someone finds him as quick as he could hope, watches the collar of his V-neck while making small talk. When the guy leans forward, Basti meets him halfway: for once unconcerned about how exposed, how — comparatively — public the club bar is.

“Bathroom,” the guy mumbles against his mouth as Basti’s hands drop lower.

“Yeah,” Basti says, hooks a finger into his belt loop and leads him through the crowds.

By the time they find an empty stall he’s about out of patience. He locks the door behind them and then revels in how easily the guy pushes him against the wall, thigh between his own, gets broad hands around his wrists and pins him.

“Nnngh,” Basti says and the guy grins; Basti twists out of his grip, fully aware of his own strength, and drops to his knees.

The guy laughs, hoarse and drunken and half-disbelieving. “Wouldn’t have taken you for one of those,” he says, backing up into the other wall as Basti mouths at his jeans, “but I’m not complaining.”

“One of those,” Basti says, and it comes out a harsh exhale of air on his own knuckles as he fumbles with the guy’s belt buckle, then zipper. 

“Yeah,” the guy says, again almost on a laugh — Basti tugs his jeans and boxers down with one movement, getting them tangled around his thighs, and eyes his dripping cock.

“Take a picture,” the guy starts, and then Basti takes him in, as much as he can, halfway to the base before he gags and eases up. The guy moans softly, gets a hand in his hair and drags dull nails against the nape of his neck.

He’s done it before with Felix, but that was different. Felix was careful and slow, gave only what he could take, and was always reluctant to push too hard; in here, no one knows or cares how much experience he has, or with who, or why — they just care that he’s on his knees and wants to suck dick. It’s painfully simple, and he takes to it with vicious ease.

He does it as well as he can; he knows from experience that once there’s a mouth around your cock you stop getting picky about the details, but he’s still hit with the twisted desire to be _good_ , to win at this like he couldn’t win at the rest, like he couldn’t fight hard enough to bring Germany to glory or love Lukas right but he’ll learn to suck dick if it kills him.

The guy tightens his grip on Basti’s neck when Basti tries to ease off a little; Basti growls, low in his throat, knowing how he’ll feel the vibrations. He smirks as the guy groans, flicks his tongue against the tip before raising his hand to the guy’s hip, encouraging him to thrust.

“Fuck,” the guy breathes, and Basti looks up through his lashes. 

He takes it as long as he can and then sucks quick and hard and dirty, wrapping his hand around the base, and the noises he hears are enough to warn him of what’s about to happen. 

He can’t swallow, spits into the toilet bowl instead; not his sexiest moment, but he grins up, fully aware of how filthy he looks, and is hauled up by the hair for his trouble.

“I’m taking you home,” the guy breathes into his mouth.

“Right,” Basti says, sickly satisfied. “Yes, you are.”

 

The call wakes him up disgustingly early. Basti whines, hangover pounding at his head — the guy under the blankets next to him snaps “Get that shit, would you?”

Basti kicks him irritatedly before rolling away, hauls himself out of the covers and goes rooting around on the messy floor for his jeans. He finds his phone and stares at his manager’s number for a second before his brain kicks in, then excuses himself to the bathroom and locks himself in.

“What,” he answers irritatedly, “It’s Sunday, I’m off today —“

“What the fuck were you thinking,” his manager half-yells. Through the phone, it comes out even louder; Basti pulls the phone away from his ear in shock and speaks from a safe distance.

“Uh,” he says, looking at himself in the guy’s mirror; there are bruises littered over his collarbone and others on his hips, only a couple from football, and he looks sunken and pale in the harsh incandescent light. He drags his eyes away from his own naked form before answering. “You’re gonna have to tell me what I did.”

“Basti,” his manager says, in a tone of voice that Basti’s never heard before and is, to be frank, slightly terrifying. “You know we need full confidence.”

“Yeah,” Basti says, “And you have it, of course.”

“Really,” the voice on the phone spits back. “You never mentioned you’d been fucking men.”

Oh shit.

Oh, _shit_.

“Oh shit,” Basti says.

“Oh shit is right,” his manager says, and Basti has to lean against the counter to steady himself. “Basti, you’re lucky they came to us with the pictures first.”

“Pictures,” Basti says weakly. _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_.

“We have enough to give them what they want so they won’t go to Bild, but it’s a close thing. At a club, of all things?”

“We’re buying them out,” Basti says — suddenly, he can’t even curl his voice enough to make it a question. His limbs feel weak, his head clouded, and he thinks he might be sick.

“Yeah, we’re buying them out,” his manager says. “Unless you want them to go to print?”

“No,” Basti says. “I don’t. I don’t want them to go to print.”

“Good,” says the phone. “Get over here as soon as you can. We need to talk, and you need to be honest if it kills you, because you _know_ there are things you can’t just laugh away."

The line clicks off. Basti stares at his reflection in disbelief.

He’s glad when the nausea curling up his throat takes hold; he empties his stomach into the toilet and then drinks straight from the faucet before going back into the bedroom.

“I have to go,” he tells the blanketed form on the bed.

“What,” the guy says into his pillow. “You said breakfast.”

Basti pulls on his jeans, roots around for any shirt he can find. “Urgent business,” he says, as airly as he can manage. “Can’t wait. You know how it is.”

“Who the fuck are you, even,” the guy groans — he sits up and blinks at Basti with hazy blue eyes. Basti pulls on his shoes, cracks a half-sarcastic smile.

“Bye,” he calls, as an afterthought, already halfway down the hallway.

 

He’s almost to Lukas’ house before he remembers Lukas doesn’t live there anymore — that even if he did, that this is something Basti can’t tell him.

Won’t. Won’t tell him.

He swallows, turns the car around and prays for thicker skin.

 

Grudgingly, he meets with his manager: sets his jaw during the lecture, laces his fingers together so his nails won’t dig half-moons into his palm. He knows he’s been stupid and careless and he knows there’s things that he can’t do, not if he wants to be successful in football and not if he wants to be talked about for the _right_ reasons.

He tells his manager he’s only been fucking men for a year. He tells him that yeah, he still likes girls; yeah, him and Sarah are fine; yeah, she knows.

His manager asks him to stop, for his own sake. There are a thousand words on the tip of his tongue but the ones that thrill him most say _I wish they had gone straight to Bild, you sanctimonious fuck, because I may be a faggot but you told me to be honest if it kills me._  

 

Suddenly, he’s a problem case — closeted, reckless, not the normal party boy but the queer one, whose late-night actions would get more than a scandalized second-page headline from the magazines. Every time he thinks it might be easier to stop it just makes him want to lash out with more force, viciously unwilling to ever prove them right, but he’s wary — and scared — enough to learn how to be careful.

Sarah talks him down from every stupid, half-drunk rage he goes into early in the morning when he’s sick of feeling dirty, and every part of him that doesn’t love her for it just wishes she didn’t have to.

“You need to slow down,” she says, hands cool on his forehead as he leans over the sink.

He remembers Lukas’ voice and the same words — warmer, broader hands — wonders if they might end up meaning the same things.

 

There’s a dinner in Berlin that September that the national team is invited to. Basti doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to dress up and play pretty for the camera but wants to deal with seeing Lukas even less. He’s scared, in a heavy, crippling way, that Lukas doesn’t want to see him anymore; he’s scared in a way for once untainted by anger, because he’s never been able to be angry at Lukas.

Lukas is there when he touches down at the airport, waiting with a couple other members of the team, and has eyes for no one else.

“Hi,” he says to Basti, as Basti watches him dumbly. 

“Hi,” Basti parrots. “Are you —”

“I missed you,” Lukas says, in a rush. “Be quiet.”

“Okay,” Basti says as Lukas pulls him in, so relieved he can barely hold himself up.

 

“I told them we could room together,” Lukas says once they reach the hotel. “Is that okay?”

Basti hates the uncertainty he hears in his voice. “Of course, stupid,” he says — Lukas grins and takes one of his bags, leads him toward the elevator.

“Uh,” Lukas says, as they wait, “Dinner’s at 6-ish, but we’re meeting a half-hour before.” He looks at Basti, takes in his T-shirt, his battered jeans, his sneakers. “Are you wearing that?”

“Shut up,” Basti breathes, and then, “Jesus, Lukas, I missed you, too.”

 

They make it to the dinner, somehow, though the feeling of Lukas moving around in the small space of their hotel room is achingly familiar and gives Basti no great incentive to leave. He’s too restless to sit quietly; Lukas seems to feel the same and smiles ruefully at him over their empty plates. Basti’s viciously thankful and overwhelmingly relieved that Lukas isn’t mad at him, and it’s enough to get him through the dry speeches and on to the mingling, where he can sling his arm across Lukas’ shoulders and no one looks twice.

“Who are these people,” Lukas says, tucked comfortably into Basti’s side. “Do we know them? Why are we here? What is this?”

“Beats me,” Basti says. Lukas chuckles lowly and greets a couple that approaches them, extends a hand.

They know who he and Lukas are, which is normal — he and Lukas have no idea who they are, which is also pretty normal. The woman compliments their suits and the man begins talking about Bayern, which makes Lukas shift uncomfortably; Basti runs a reassuring hand across his shoulders and tries not to encourage the line of conversation.

As the man begins talking about transfer season — _really_ , Basti thinks, _is this really necessary_ — Basti notices a familiar face hanging around the bottles of champagne.

“Hang on,” Basti whispers in Lukas’ ear, smiles amiably at the couple and darts over to the drinks table.

Felix turns around as he approaches; Basti says, “You _shit_ ,” and then, “Why didn’t you say hi?”

“Thought I’d wait until you noticed me,” Felix says, a laughing humor in his eyes. “You seemed otherwise occupied.”

“Absolutely not,” Basti says, grinning. “Fuck, you should have warned me.”

“I didn’t think you scared that easily,” Felix says. Basti sticks his tongue out, and when Felix stays there, still smiling, slides closer. 

“I’ve missed you in Munich,” Basti says softly, the implication of his words clear.

The look Felix gives him borders on sympathetic. Basti frowns at him. “What’s that face for?”

“What face,” Felix says, eyes moving from Basti to some point behind him. Basti feels a warm hand on his back, and then —

“Who’s this?” Lukas asks.

“Shit,” Basti says, turning back to him. “Sorry, Lukas, this is Felix Neureuther. We grew up together,” he adds as they shake hands politely.

“I beat him at skiing,” Felix explains, grinning at Lukas. “Scared him into football.”

“Thanks for that,” Lukas says, half-smiling; Basti starts, “Felix, this is —“

“I know who he is,” Felix says, wearing an expression that Basti knows all-too-well. “I’ve heard _so much_ about you.”

Basti can’t elbow Felix without Lukas noticing, so he glares at him instead as Lukas turns slightly pink. Felix puts a placating hand on his back and smiles at Lukas, making small talk about Cologne and the Bundesliga while Basti watches curiously: Lukas gives short answers, his eyes narrowed. He doesn’t want to be here, Basti realizes, and ignores the way his heart sinks.

Felix excuses himself and heads to the bathroom; Basti offers to take Lukas’ empty glass to the bar, checks to see if anyone’s looking, and follows.

 

“He’s cute,” Felix says when Basti slips into the stall.

“I know,” Basti says, presses Felix into the tile at his back and kisses him, hard.

Felix doesn’t push him away but he doesn’t pull him closer — when they break apart to breathe, he puts a hand on Basti’s chest to stop him from leaning back in.

“Lukas is outside,” Felix says, like Basti doesn’t know.

“So?” Basti says, and crowds in further. He presses a kiss to Felix’s cheek, and when he doesn’t stop him, another to his neck. 

“You’re a fucking mess,” Felix says harshly, refusing to touch Basti back. “You need to tell him.”

Basti makes a vague noise into Felix’s jaw, bites it, and then drops to the floor.

“Basti,” Felix says, looking down at him exasperatedly, “I’m not doing shit with you in a _bathroom_ , especially when the guy you’re in love with is right outside.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Basti says. “I’m already on my knees.”

Felix swears and pushes Basti backwards; he barely catches himself before his ass hits the tile. “No,” he says. “For fuck’s sake, Basti, you need to — _no_.”

He slams the stall door open; Basti hears him walk out. He slumps into the wall with a sigh and stays on his knees until they start to ache.

 

“I’m done with this party,” Lukas says when Basti catches back up to him.

“Me too,” Basti says. “Let’s go.”

 

The walk back to their hotel room is silent. Basti’s not quite sure why; even though the transfer still makes him feel sick if he thinks about it too much, he and Lukas are as close to normal as they’ve ever been. They were fine earlier, and they were fine when the dinner started, but Lukas is quiet and chewing on the inside of his lip like he did the whole damn time at Bayern when his discomfort was building up and it makes Basti feel like a piece of shit without even knowing why.

Once they’re within the walls of the room Lukas eases up a little — unbuttons his shirt and jacket with a groan, sinks into the chair and watches Basti attempt half-heartedly to move some of their stuff off the bed. They’ll end up kicking the rest away in their sleep, but it doesn’t hurt to try; that, and Basti has the uneasy feeling that he shouldn’t look too closely at Lukas right now.

“Basti,” Lukas says eventually.

“Huh?” Basti tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, ignores how the hair on the back of his neck stands up.

Lukas doesn’t say anything. Basti turns around.

“What, Lukas,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as panicked as he feels.

“Did you sleep with him?” Lukas blurts.

Oh, _fuck_.

There’s a moment where Basti thinks he’s heard him wrong, then a moment where Basti knows he’s heard him right and considers lying, and then everything that comes after that, where Basti’s brain flatlines to _IfuckeditupIfuckeditupIfuckeditupIfuckeditup_ and he considers the merits of locking himself in the bathroom and never leaving again.

“Um,” he says instead, which is still the smartest thing his brain could come up with, considering.

“Basti?” Lukas asks. His eyes are huge. Basti doesn’t think he looks angry. He’s not the kind of person who would be, normally, but if you find out that your best friend’s been lying to you about something this big for five years, he’d understand, he would.

“Yeah,” Basti says, and it sounds plain when he says it now, not like the weight he’s been carrying since the day he found out himself. “Yeah, I did,” he says, and the words are so _small_.

“I,” Lukas says.

“I should have said something,” Basti says quickly. “I should have — sorry.”

“What?” Lukas says, and then, “No, don’t — apologize, shit, but. You never mentioned.” 

Basti looks at Lukas’ stricken face and feels the absurd need to apologize for the fear settling low in his chest.

“It’s,” Basti says, “I would have told you, I promise.”

Lukas stares at him. “Are you just saying that? Because — Basti, if you ever thought,”

“I didn’t, I trust you, alright, it was just that,” Basti says, desperate for Lukas to listen, to understand.

Lukas watches him, wide-eyed. Basti exhales slowly, gets his breathing under control.

“I was scared,” he says when he gets his voice back, so softly it’s almost a whisper. Lukas cranes his neck to hear. “I’m just so fucking scared, and I thought the fewer people I told the safer I’d be.”

“Fuck,” Lukas says. “I, yeah, okay.” He presses his hand against his eyes. “Do you feel unsafe? Is that another thing I’ve missed?”

“I,” Basti says, and then, “What?”

He can’t read the emotion on Lukas’ face, which is terrifying enough in itself. His hands are restless again, flying up and down his thighs, and he has no apparent desire to look anywhere but Basti — disquieting, as Basti feels more exposed than he has in God knows how long.

“Can you like,” Basti asks, “not look at me like that? Please?”

Lukas shakes his head; something behind his eyes slips away. “Sorry,” he says, lowering his gaze. Basti watches him watch his own hands.

“I feel so stupid,” Lukas says after a minute.

“Why?”

Lukas shrugs helplessly. “I. You’re my best friend.”

Oh.

“I thought I knew everything about you. I want — I want to know everything about you. Yeah?”

Oh, _oh_.

 

They still share the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr @ madanach and twitter @ anahaedra
> 
> title was taken from warsan shire
> 
> as always, i'd love critique/reviews (and if i fucked up anything major PLEASE say, as i mentioned earlier, i wrote half of this while hopped up on nyquil)
> 
> this fic may have been a mistake.


	2. 2010 - 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It didn't go away, not ever, not really._
> 
> Basti falls in love with Lukas on a bitter-cold Tuesday night as Lukas sips Glühwein from a ceramic mug and wrinkles his red nose in Basti’s direction, illuminated by buzzing golden lights, smelling of laundry detergent and pine. The rest, as they say, is history.
> 
> Written for the Schweinski Holiday Fic Exchange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I NEED TO SAY SOME THINGS BEFORE WE BEGIN! THIS IS IN CAPS FOR IMPORTANCE.
> 
> ONE, THANK YOU ALL FOR NOT HATING ME. THIS TOOK SEVERAL LIFETIMES LONGER THAN EXPECTED.
> 
> TWO, MILOS IVANOVIC SEEMS LIKE THE KIND OF GUY WHO GOOGLES HIMSELF. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, MILOS, PLEASE CLOSE THE PAGE. IT'S BETTER FOR ALL OF US.
> 
> the required disclaimer: i don't own basti, lukas, sarah, milos, the dfb, bayern, the world cup, or a soccer ball. this is a work of fiction. any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, or i'm psychic.

Life goes on.

Basti stays grounded, somehow. There’s reassurance in the certainty of football, that no matter how lost he feels he can still wake up in the morning and walk onto the pitch and the game will be waiting for him, and he lets that keep him standing. 

The months get longer. Bayern makes it to the Champion’s League final and is knocked out by Inter Milan, transfer window comes and goes, and Basti plays until his muscle memory carries him far longer than his mind can. Felix frets. Sarah tells him it’s a coping mechanism. He ignores them both and focuses on Lukas’ texts, just as frequent as before he found him out, and the way they never fail to even out his heartbeat.

 

“How has it been four years?” Lukas asks when they see each other in South Africa, finally back in the same kit as Basti. All Basti can do is shrug his shoulders; they were the longest four years of his life and still went by so quick. 

In the World Cup he does best he can with what is asked of him, but they’re not the best team in that tournament by a long shot and they know it much too quickly, watching Spain rise up the ranks with ease. 

Still, they’re straight after a 4-0 win over Argentina, out of everyone, and Basti thinks that might be why it hits them as hard as it does: Puyol scrapes out a goal with twenty minutes to spare and then he’s back inside with hollow eyes for the second time in his career. As bitter as it is, if it was the final he doesn’t think it’s something he could bear. 

There are plenty of names used against Spain and their wild triumph — Basti coins a few of them himself, in a vague attempt to placate the roiling mixture of anger and nausea — but _fuckin’ queers, pansies, faggots_ just make him feel sicker, even more so because he has the morbid desire to agree.

“Shut the fuck up,” Lukas says from behind him, catching the words, and keeps his chin up stubbornly when the rest of the dressing room gapes. Once they look away he turns back to Basti with wide eyes, an expression on his face that Basti knows well: _how’d I do?_

He smiles for the first time that day.

 

The second round of condolences trickle in, just as sincere as 2006 but with the added layer of _be patient, you’ve tried twice, you’re almost there_. He thinks people he’s trying to win a trophy for could give him something a little more solid than that. He thanks them politely and thinks that a lot can happen in four years.

  

To get his mind off things Sarah buys them both tickets to Florida, taking full advantage of his reluctance to make firm vacation plans, so he’s lying in bed in the sticky summer heat the day Lukas gets married. He stares at his webcam and wonders if his expression should aim for _heartfelt congratulations_ or _immature best man_.

“Hi,” Lukas says, leaning towards the camera. His smile is blinding; Basti sees a crisp shirt collar and the shoulders of his jacket.

“Hey yourself,” Basti says. “Step back, I want to see you.”

Lukas raises his hands and obliges, looking behind him to make sure he doesn’t trip over anything. His suit is silvery grey, not quite fitted to his frame, and the bowtie isn’t doing him any favors. Basti stifles a snort.

“You look like a dork,” he says, grinning. 

“Excuse me,” Lukas says indignantly. “It’s my wedding day. Lie to me.”

“You look ravishing,” Basti says dryly. “She’ll jump you at the altar. I hope you’re okay with that level of blasphemy.”

“Thank you,” Lukas says, coming back to sit in front of the camera. He’s still smiling, all red-cheeked excitement, and his good spirits have always been infectious; Basti finds himself just grinning at Lukas’ little picture on the computer, no matter his misgivings. He expected to be jealous — although he is, down to his bones, and he tries not to think about it — but not content to sit there, watching from a million miles away, pleased that Lukas is happy on the other side of the world. 

“You look good, though,” he says. “Seriously.” 

“Do I?” Lukas asks. “I don’t know about the color. I don’t think I’m movie star enough.”

“Well,” Basti says, “You’re not a movie star, I can’t help you there.” Lukas sticks out his tongue. “Are you nervous?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Lukas says ruefully. “You can feel my heart pounding if you touch it.”

Basti has a quick flash of him running his hand up Lukas’ stomach, pulling the buttons of his shirt apart and sliding his hand in, spreading it flat across Lukas’ warm chest. He thinks he couldn’t quite get away with that on the wedding day.

“You’ll do fine,” Basti says instead, going for reassuring. “It can’t be that hard, right?”

Lukas laughs. “Fuck, I hope not.”

“I promise you’ve done scarier shit,” Basti says.

Lukas hums happily. Basti pictures him waiting at the end of the aisle, says, “She’s a lucky girl.”

 

He spends the rest of his vacation on the beach, sleeping or reading or drinking terrible American beer, listening to Sarah’s steady voice and the way it doesn’t echo through his head like Lukas’ Catholic god does, asking _do you take this woman,_ and Lukas saying _I do_.

 

It’s a relief when he can throw himself back into the Bundesliga; despite an early blunder they play well, adjusting to the absence of Miro with a host of new transfers. He recognizes a couple of them from call-ups or the youth team. They get on well, and he guesses he’s not surprised when it’s those younger ones who stand by him when Philipp takes a stray kick and is ruled out until winter.

The Captain’s band feels unfamiliar around his arm and the team notices, they do. Despite Heynckes’ confidence he sees the way the others watch him — he’s 26, he’s not old but he’s not _young_ , and they must believe in him, logically, that’s why they gave him the armband, but, but, but.

But he fucks up, doesn’t he, a couple of times, and it’s not enough to endanger his position but it’s plenty for people to whisper. What hurts is that he expects it from the tabloids, but his teammates? He shares a dressing room with them, plays with them every day, it’s them he’s supposed to be leading, and when they have doubts they won’t even say it to his face.

It’s juvenile, which is probably why he responds the way he does. He can’t even tell them he didn’t mean it, afterward, — he did, every damn word, _it’s a joke_ and _you don’t understand_ and _I deserve more respect_ , too — and _Chefchen_ sounds damning on his tongue because they gave him their trust and their hope and this is what he did with it.

His manager chews him out, afterwards, a lashing that makes him flash back to 2009, and everything the fucker says is true.

 

Bars aren’t safe for him anymore. Sarah does her god-forsaken best to hold him down. He pushes his body until it splits at the seams, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach lost in the furious, consuming determination to show the crowds that the worst parts of him still fight back. 

 

In mid-January, Felix’s caller ID shows up on his phone; hoping for a respite and longing for a fuck, Basti answers with his first grin in days. He’s in town fresh off a loss in Croatia and Basti bugs him until he comes over, knocking on Basti’s door with a heavy smile.

“Hey,” he says when Basti pulls the door open, and smiles a bit brighter when Basti pushes a beer into his hands.

“Hey yourself,” Basti tells him, gestures him inside.

He plops down on Basti’s couch and starts talking immediately, loud and directed so that Basti can hear him as he finds himself a beer, then falls onto the other couch, feet up on the coffee table. 

“It was a terrible race, man,” Felix says at the end of his rant. “I don’t want to think about it ever again.”

“Third isn’t bad,” Basti says, half-grinning at Felix’s exasperation.

Felix laughs. “Alright, Basti. That’d be a valid point if you didn’t blow me off every time I said that to you.”

“So not the same thing,” Basti says loudly. “Absolutely not the same thing.”

“Whatever, Basti,” Felix says — he kicks his leg against Basti’s on the coffee table and Basti grins, pushes back. 

A moment of content silence passes, Basti takes a sip of his beer, and then Felix clears his throat.

“We should talk about this,” Felix says. “Before anything happens.”

Basti shifts in his seat and watches him, takes in the set of his jaw, his darting eyes. His stomach churns. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Felix says softly, pressing his toes into Basti’s ankle in a quiet attempt at reassurance. “I just think. I think I want to try for my own life, you know?”

Basti nods, carefully still. His throat feels swollen, and he hopes Felix doesn’t ask him any questions because he knows his words would waver. It’s stupid and juvenile and it’s his own idiot fault but he _knew_ the thing with Felix wasn’t permanent, and he _knew_ —

“It didn’t last very long,” he says, because fuck his shaking voice.

“It’s been years, Basti,” Felix says. “It has to be almost four by now.”

“Why do I feel like you’re breaking up with me,” Basti says.

“Listen,” Felix says sharply, and then he’s sitting up, leaning across the space between the couches, making Basti catch his eye. “We weren’t together. You know this.”

“I know,” Basti hisses, “I didn’t say—“

“No, you listen to me,” Felix says. “I’m your friend. Basti, no, look at me, I’m your _friend_. And I want you to be _happy_.”

“Why are you leaving, then?” Basti says, and all of the terror and anger and loneliness he’s been feeling the whole damn time is suddenly horrifically present, buzzing right under his skin like it was a part of him all along.

“You’re not happy with me,” Felix says. “Don’t avoid this. You’re stubborn but you’re smarter than I ever was. What do you want, Basti?”

Basti glares at him. Felix fists a hand in his shirt and shakes him.

“What do you want? Basti, you need to fucking say it, what do you want?”

“I know what I want,” Basti spits and pulls away so sharply that Felix reels back in shock. They stare at each other with wide, burning eyes, and then Basti says again, in a voice so soft it’s barely audible, “I know what I want.”

“It’s not me.”

“It’s not you.”

“It’s not Sarah.”

“It’s not — it’s not Sarah.”

“It’s not anyone you’ve ever fucked.”

“I want Lukas, fuck you. I’ve always wanted Lukas. You _know_ this. I _told_ you.”

“Yeah,” Felix says quietly. “That’s it.”

Basti opens his mouth and closes it again.

“You can only keep quiet for so long,” Felix says. He tentatively reaches out and touches Basti’s knee; Basti doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t acknowledge him, either.

“Want to bet?” Basti says, holds open his stinging eyes.

 

He knows Felix is right, which is what kills him. They see each other a couple times a season at least and Lukas still finds him ahead of all the others, grinning like he did the first time. It’s crazy, but Basti still gets the impulse to ask for his shirt; the old one’s stuffed in his closet somewhere, probably rancid from sweat, and he’d dig it out if he wasn’t terrified of everything it implied. Seven fucking years of Lukas, enough that he knows he’s full of shit when he rationalizes it as a crush. 

Felix didn’t have any trouble with it, the night that Lukas found him out. Seven years in, he doesn’t think he’s ever said the words out loud.

 

He gets a message mid-April, _I got an offer_ , and only realizes when the number is already dialed that he hasn’t actually talked to Lukas since their last game. The cycle of Bundesliga, Bundesliga, international break, Bundesliga, international break, tournament, Bundesliga, rinse, repeat, means that he doesn’t feel like he’s running away from Lukas, but —

His best friend. _Fuck_ , he thinks, hit with a wave of guilt, and bites his lip as he listens to the dial tone, praying that Lukas picks up.

“Basti,” Lukas says when the phone clicks. Basti wets his dry lips and breathes in before answering.

“Hey, Lukas,” Basti says. The last time they called each other must have been — fuck, winter break? Longer, Basti thinks. “How’s it going?”

It’s all he can make himself say but Lukas exhales minutely and starts talking, keeping it quiet enough that Basti has to concentrate to hear him. He settles down onto the couch and lets the rumble of Lukas’ voice fill his ear. Lukas talks about the argument’s he’s been having with the higher-ups in Cologne and Basti recognizes frustration in his voice, same as at Bayern — he says, “Shit, you deserve better,” and Lukas actually laughs. His heart flips.

Lukas says England, says London, says Arsenal. Basti tells him to send postcards and says _go for it_.

 

They play Köln two weeks before the Champions League final and for once, Lukas is on neither team. Basti got a text earlier that morning that said he was already in London, getting his contract worked out; he prepared himself to see a Köln without Lukas, of course he did, but it still feels wrong. 

He hopes Lukas is watching, wherever he is in England. Lukas sends him a frowning emoticon that night; judging from that, and the page-long email of entirely bullshit English football “tips” Lukas sends him in preparation for the Champion’s League final, Basti thinks London is doing him just fine.

 

The final comes much too quick. Chelsea’s goalie is a fucking monster and they create every chance just to let it slip by — Arjen, Mario, Arjen again, and then Thomas finally makes it in just for Chelsea to equalize five minutes later, keeping them stuck in that desperate stalemate much too long, so that Basti feels his head hurt along with his legs and his lungs and his thudding heart. Extra time is unfruitful and then it’s down to penalties; Basti takes his customary place in the line-up and bites his tongue the whole damn time.

When he steps up it’s 3-3 and he _knows_ , before he knows, that he’s made a mistake. Time slows down — no, not time, but _he_ slows down. He feels his mind grind to a halt and watches his foot connect with the ball like it’s happening to another person, like the way it connects with Čech’s glove is someone else’s bad dream, someone else’s fuck-up.

Someone cheers behind him, in English. Čech picks himself off the ground and the Allianz howls its displeasure, that heavy sound that vibrates through your feet and settles in the marrow of your bones, pushes at the knees that hold your body up, sinks deep in the pit you used to call your chest. The sob wrenches its way out of him without his consent and he can barely get his shirt over his face fast enough to cover it.

 _Stop fucking hiding_ , says a voice in his head that he doesn’t recognize; he thinks hysterically that it sounds like the shade of red that is all he can see.

Philipp’s fingers wrap around his upper arm, so tight he thinks they might bruise; Basti looks at him and his eyes are fixed on Manu taking his place in the goal but a muscle in his jaw is tight and Basti already wants to apologize, fuck. He shrugs ungently out of Philipp’s grasp and watches Drogba step up to the box with a foot’s space on either side of him.

Drogba makes it through. Of course he does. 

Basti feels his throat close up, impossible and heady, and doesn’t try to fight when his legs give way beneath him. Every other loss he’s ever suffered fades to a dull sting. This is raw and new and was all him, just him, their last, best hope. 

 

His first instinct is chokingly desperate, as low as he’s ever been: he wants to find someone his size or larger with hands big enough to hold him down and let them do whatever the fuck they want, push or bite or bruise until he can’t feel his ugly traitorous body anymore, and the only thing keeping him from doing just that is the certainty that it _would_ be the end of his career, because now the entirety of Europe knows what face he makes when he wants to forget his own name and the only thing juicier than the best team losing is the best team losing because of the cocksucker who couldn’t do the one thing asked of him.

 

Instead, he drinks. He goes out with Manu the first night and the others trickle in later, all facing their own lapses of stunned disbelief. By the end of the week he’s starting fights, screaming just to scream, hysterically satisfied by how even the calmest of his teammates bite back under this kind of sorrow. It doesn’t make him feel better; it’s a distraction, and something to do with his hands.

It comes to a head when he stumbles on the way home one night, shoulder crashing hard into the pavement. He scowls and hauls himself up, somehow gets through his front door and into the bedroom before flipping on the painfully bright light and staring in interest at his purple shoulder, the bits that fade into yellow, the patch that darkens to blue-black. It didn’t break the skin but he’s sure it’ll hurt like a bitch in the morning.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Sarah says from the doorway.

Basti starts, staring at her in the mirror with the curious, out-of-place desire to cover himself. “Nothing,” he says automatically; it comes out harsher than he intended, his voice still rough from drink.

“Bullshit,” she says, coming towards him. When she reaches to touch the bruise he smacks her hand away without thinking.

“Don’t,” he says.

“What the fuck,” she repeats, looking at him with wide eyes. “Did you — did you get in a fight, Basti, for Christ’s sake —“

“No,” he says sharply, “Just — go away, alright, I’m fine.“

“You’re obviously fucking not,” she says. 

“I’m fine,” he says, louder, and when she tries to get closer pushes past her and heads for the kitchen, unsure if he’s looking for water for his dry throat or beer to make it drier.

“Don’t you touch that,” she says, following him. “Basti, that’s enough!”

His head is pounding. He doesn’t know what she _wants_. “You can shut up,” he says, turning around — his limbs are too loose, his feet rolling his weight side to side on the floor. He wants to get drunker and shoot penalties on an open goal until he’s too tired to fucking think.

“Don’t talk to me like that.” She puts both hands on the counter between them. “You’re fucked up right now. You need,” she says, putting emphasis on every word, “To stop.”

“I don’t need to do anything,” he hisses, and then he’s pushing forward, pressing his ribs into the other side of the counter, leaning towards her; she stumbles back and he sees his sickness in her eyes, thinks _you get it now_.

“You’re killing yourself,” Sarah says, voice breaking. Hysterical with anger, Basti thinks, and fear, probably, of his overblown, shaking wreck of a body.

“So the fuck what,” he hisses. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts dialing a number from memory, watching him the whole time like she can’t trust to take her eyes off him. Something snaps. When he tries to circle the counter to get to her, blindly wanting it away, out of her hands, his ankle catches on the carpet and he goes flying.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hears her say. He gasps, his knees aching, and then jolts his head up. The way she’s staring at her phone terrifies him.

“What is that,” Basti says wildly. “Sarah, what the fuck —“

“Sarah?” the phone says.

Sarah drops it as if stunned, backs away until the silvery case on the floor is the only barrier between them. It’s facedown but Basti knows the voice anyway, the same way he would know it in sleep, the same way he would know it in death.

“Sarah?” Lukas says again. “Hey, what’s going on?”

She makes no move to pick up the phone, doesn’t open her mouth to answer, just stares at Basti with wide, burning eyes.

Something wicked presses sharp claws to the inside of his throat until he can’t breathe. He keeps every muscle of his body as still as he can make it, struggles to inhale, exhale quietly enough that the microphone won’t pick it up.

“Is everything okay?” Lukas says.

Basti crawls over to the phone, hangs up on him with an unsteady hand.

 

Sarah lets him back in the bedroom at two in the morning, upset but not unkind, and Basti is careful to keep his hands to himself when he slides in next to her. She whispers _good night_ and faces him, but he’s almost afraid to touch, unsure if he can trust himself, unsure if she can trust him.

She apologizes later that morning, in a soft voice over their thrown-together breakfast, and he just nods. He doesn’t want to think about what that says about him. He doesn’t want to think about Lukas’ voice like a chain, holding him back, with Sarah saying she didn’t know who else to call.

“You get scary,” she says bluntly. “When you drink.”

Basti puts his fork down slowly. He’s never laid a hand on her, doesn’t even know if that’s what she means.

“It always seems like a good idea when I start,” he says, looking at her until she meets his gaze. “It never is.”

“I figured that out, Basti,” she says, reaching for the juice. “I’d tell you to look into therapy, but mostly it’s just easiest to wait for it to pass.”

Basti hates the pit growing in his stomach. “Therapy for — what, drinking?”

Sarah shrugs. Anyone else would look at him pityingly, but she talks frankly in a way that gives him back humanity even when he feels like he’s rotting from the inside.

“Yeah, if you wanted,” she says. “But that’s not the root of it. Go straight to the cause, right?”

“The cause being,” Basti says, and then his phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. Sarah smiles ruefully, picks a slice of pineapple off Basti’s plate with her fingers.

“I’m guessing that’s him,” she says.

Basti pushes out his chair, unplugs his phone — sure enough, the caller ID says _Poldi_ , the screen flashing one of the thousand selfies he takes on Basti’s phone whenever Basti falls asleep.

“Tell him it was an accident,” Sarah says. “Butt-dial, or whatever.” Basti clicks answer.

“Hey,” he says, moving to lean against the fridge but not leaving the room, trusting Sarah to keep his responses in check.

“Hi, Basti,” Lukas says. Basti’s phone is better than Sarah’s; he sounds less tinny than he did the night before. 

“What’s up?” Basti says, crossing an arm over his chest.

“Sarah called me last night,” Lukas says, right to the point. “I thought it might’ve been an accident but it sounded like the phone dropped and I thought I heard you in the background. Is she okay?”

Sarah nods meaningfully. Basti says, “Yeah, she’s fine, she’s right here. It must have been a mistake.”

“Oh, okay, good,” Lukas says. Sarah mouths _Can I talk to him?_

Basti mouths _Yes_ back, then says, “I’m gonna give you to her, she wants to say hi.”

Lukas hums, a half-electric buzzing in Basti’s ear. He hands the phone to Sarah and she stands up immediately, heading for the hallway.

“Hi, Lukas,” he hears her say.

He sits back down, stares at the heap of fruit on his plate, the basket of rolls they pulled out of a prepackaged bag because they’re both too lazy to go to the bakery in the morning. His stomach churns.

“God damn it,” he says, and drops his head in his hands.

 

It’s a miracle he makes it to Euro with the way his head is spinning, but once he’s there it feels like he can breathe again. It’s probably thanks to Lukas; he doesn’t think too hard about it, but they see each other and Lukas squeezes him tightly and his voice sounds so much warmer than it does over the phone. The uneasiness surrounding their situation only gives way when Basti’s actually near him, but when it’s gone, it’s nowhere to be found. 

They stick to each other through training and the half-formal, half-pointless events Löw insists they attend, keeping to groups of their teammates large enough that they won’t have to direct a conversation while Basti contemplates how much champagne he can get away with drinking when they still have practice the next day.

He always gets distracted by the crowd at these things. Lukas teases him for it but generally whoever they’re listening to is significantly less interesting than the people gathered around them; he catches sight of an older couple who are quite clearly talking about the men standing by them, and then his gaze gets caught on a little girl in an ill-fitting dress who’s tapping her feet restlessly, a waitress that keeps smiling at the same young woman as she serves her her drinks, a man at the bar with a shock of black hair who catches Basti’s eye and smiles. He looks back to the group quickly, not wanting to give the wrong idea, and Lukas catches his expression and pushes to the side, touches Basti’s arm.

“I’m bored,” he says.

Basti smiles. “No shit,” he says. “Drinks?"

Lukas shrugs. “No, but I’ll come with,” he says, and they make it almost all the way to the bar before someone’s voice behind them calls, “Podolski!”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lukas says vehemently, and then, “Go on, you don’t want to get caught too, I’ll catch up.” Basti frowns at him but ducks away before whoever recognized Lukas can recognize him too, looks for an empty spot at the bar as close to the wall as he can find.

“A beer, thanks,” he tells the bartender, settles back against the counter to wait, and he’s only been there a couple of seconds before the man he noticed before excuses himself from his companion and takes the seat next to him.

“Drinking alone?”

Basti raises his eyebrow at the clumsy line. “Crowd full of people, can’t really call it that,” he says. 

The man’s eyes crinkle up at the corners and he nods concedingly.

“True, that was sloppy of me,” he says as the bartender slides Basti’s drink across the counter. Basti thanks him and turns back to the guy politely but hopes he doesn’t keep it up too long, lets his eyes wander the crowd so he doesn’t think he’s _too_ interested. “I had to come say hi, you understand,” he continues.

Basti hums, hoping Lukas shows up and gives him an excuse to cut the conversation short. “Did you?" 

“Of course,” he says, smiling all the while. “Schweinsteiger, right?”

Basti nods. The guy’s got a foreign accent to his English, but he pronounced his name right, so Basti gives in and says, “Have we met?”

“No,” he replies. “You’ve met my friend, though.”

Basti peeks behind him — the man he was talking with earlier is obviously an athlete, and Basti thinks he must have seen him on the pitch somewhere.

“I’m sure I have,” he says politely. “And you are?”

“Julian Read, pleased to meet you.” He sticks out his hand and Basti takes it, murmurs “Likewise,” then picks up his drink, intending to go.

“Hey, hang on a sec,” the guy says, and catches Basti’s wrist. Basti grits his teeth and turns back, raising his eyebrows with a hum.

He makes polite conversation for a much longer than he’d like to, and when the guy — he forgot his name immediately after it was said — asks for his number he’s too bewildered to think of a decent excuse, writes it down on a napkin and immediately regrets not changing a digit. He feels vaguely like he may have been played, judging by the excited look on the guy’s face.

It’s a welcome distraction when Lukas pops up behind him, shrugging his shoulders in a _what gives?_ motion. Basti shrugs back. The guy puts his hand on Basti’s shoulder and Basti widens his eyes at Lukas, taps the counter for another drink.

Lukas raises his eyebrows comically. Basti stifles a snort, says, “Sorry, what?” when he realizes the guy was still talking.

“I was saying,” he says, but follows Basti’s line of sight and turns around. “Who’s that?”

“Friend of mine,” Basti says, “Sorry, I have to go, I think he’s dying.”

“He’s,” the guy says. “Okay, nice meeting you?”

“You too,” Basti says and dashes away.

He catches a glimpse of Lukas’ grinning face and darts through the crowd as Lukas heads for the door, shoulders shaking with laughter. 

“Don’t fucking laugh,” he says loudly when they get out into the hallway — Lukas, cackling like a maniac, rubs a hand across his face — and Basti makes a beeline towards an empty table against the wall, braces both hands against it, trying to get his grin under control. The awkwardness of the guy’s attempted flirting is quickly forgotten in their shared hysterics.

Lukas’ fingers touch his back, then his body’s against Basti, giggling into the back of his neck.

“Not your type, eh,” Basti hears him say, choked out between chuckles. He grins widely and leans his head back, knocking it against Lukas’ scalp. Lukas giggles again and keeps his nose pressed to the knob of Basti’s spine.

“Was it that obvious,” Basti says, happily aware of Lukas’ hipbone digging into his back. 

“Totally,” Lukas says. “Absolutely that obvious, oh my God.”

“Yeah, well, tell _him_ that,” Basti says, cheeks hurting from smiling. Lukas’ hand on his back slips to his hip and turns him around, and then he’s looking at Lukas’ idiot grin, trapped between Lukas’ body — now not quite against Basti’s own — and the table behind him.

“I should, shouldn’t I,” Lukas murmurs. Basti’s brain, which detoured to _touchhimtouchhimtouchhim_ the minute he noticed their position, takes a moment to catch back up.

“Do it,” he challenges weakly. People are still filtering out from the bathrooms to the main hall or vice-versa, and there’s a steady hum of people when the doors open, the background noise of heels clicking on the floor. He knows how they’ll look to anyone who walks past but can’t really bring himself to care.

“Hmm,” Lukas says, surveying him. “Just tell him you’re not interested.” 

Basti raises an eyebrow. “When’s the last time a girl was politely flirting with you at a bar and you told her to fuck off?”

“This is different,” Lukas says, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to his toes so they poke Basti pointedly. “Also, I didn’t say to tell him fuck off, and that was not polite flirting.”

“It wasn’t impolite,” Basti says.

“It was tacky and obnoxious,” Lukas says. “He was touching you.”

“So are you,” Basti says, the words slipping out before he can think better of them.

Lukas’ eyes widen, and his gaze drops to his arms, folded and pressed against Basti’s chest. He rocks back to his heels like he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.

Lukas exhales, and then says, “But I have your number already,” in a tone of voice so tentative Basti almost thinks he’s asking a question. He can’t help but smile at Lukas’ awkward reaction, chest warming with fondness.

Basti wraps his arm around Lukas’ shoulders and steps away, pulling them back towards the main hall. “You noticed,” he says airily. 

Lukas hums, gets an arm around Basti’s waist and says, “Next time I’ll tell him to get lost, promise.”

“Protecting my honor,” Basti says — Lukas snorts, jabs his fingers into Basti’s side, says, “Not a chance.”

 

They manage to go undefeated through the group stage, through the quarter-finals, but after watching Spain and the others play their games it’s clear they’re outmatched. They don’t expect to lose, but they don’t expect to win, either; Italy deserves the game in Warsaw even though the thought does little to lessen the sting. Basti thinks bitterly that fair play can go fuck itself, that he’s running out of time.

 

The team takes their leave with bowed heads and Lukas and Basti retreat to their hotel room, silent next to each other. Basti sees Lukas half-heartedly gather his clothes from their wreck of a floor and then ducks into the bathroom, thinking longingly of a shower hot enough to relax the ache in his back. He leaves the door cracked and Lukas pushes it open to brush his teeth, spit in the sink and, if Basti judges his footsteps correctly, watch himself in the mirror with that way he has that says _I don’t know how this happened_. He waits for Lukas to walk away before turning the water off.

By the time all the grime has been washed off his body, Lukas is already in bed. “Your phone beeped,” he says when Basti comes out, first sentence either of them have spoken since splitting off from the group.

Basti runs a hand through his wet hair, picks his phone up off the dresser before falling down into bed next to Lukas. There’s one unread text, and Basti groans when he sees the name. Lukas looks up, just barely smiling.

“What happened?” he asks.

“It’s that flirting guy,” Basti says.

“From last month?” Lukas says, remembering. “You’re actually talking to him?”

“No,” Basti says, getting up again. He plugs his phone back in, leaving the text unread — condolences, probably — and flips off the light. “I’m answering him as little as possible until he gets the hint.”

Lukas hums quietly, turns towards Basti’s side of the bed as he crawls back in. “He should have gotten the hint the minute he put his hand on your shoulder and you ordered another drink.”

“My manager yelled at me for even letting him get that close,” Basti says.

Lukas pauses. The room is very still. “Wait.”

“Wait, what?” Basti says, replaying the conversation in his head, wondering if he said something wrong.

“Your manager knows?”

Basti blinks, and then the implication of the question dawns on him. He’s not keen to talk about that part of his life, how reckless and stupid he was, and he’s least keen to talk about how it wouldn’t have happened if Lukas had stayed; he feels filthy again just thinking about it.

“Yeah,” Basti says shortly, praying Lukas will drop it.

He doesn’t. “You told him?” Lukas asks, and _fuck_ , this is not something he ever wants to admit but especially not after today, after one more defeat in a long line of defeats with nowhere to hide if he says something wrong.

“No,” Basti says. “I didn’t tell him.”

Lukas doesn’t move; the question is unspoken.

Basti takes a deep breath, says “There were pictures.”

“Pictures,” Lukas says.

“Yeah,” Basti says, and the words come out in a rush, like they had been held just behind his tongue all this time, “of me, and some guy. We were in a club and I guess just — I was an idiot and didn’t think, and I guess someone recognized me and took pictures. Of us kissing, or whatever, at the bar, and then they called my management and said if we couldn’t meet the bid they’d go to Bild.”

“What the fuck,” Lukas says.

Basti digs his nails into his palm to make himself nod.

“Basti, I,” Lukas says, and then, “I didn’t know.”

“Because I didn’t tell you,” Basti says, sharper than he intends. Lukas just — looks. “We should sleep,” Basti says, and turns to the side, trying to forget the hollows of Lukas’ cheeks, the tight line of his mouth. The shadows made him look black and white, stealing the pink of his lips and the blue of his eyes, and it’s not how Basti likes to remember him.

 _God damn it_ , he thinks, and rolls over.

“I don’t talk about it,” he says quickly, getting the words out before he can think better of it. “To anyone, really, because it’s easier if it’s separate from the people I’m close to.” Lukas nods intently. “I got careless, but,” Basti breathes deeply, “I’m not gonna make that mistake again. And it was bad but now I’m okay. Okay?”

Lukas nods again, slowly. Basti can see the creases above his eyebrows.

“What are you thinking?” Basti asks. His heart feels swollen against his heaving ribs; he knows Lukas notices it when he swallows.

“I think,” Lukas says, and stops. He bites his lip, focusing like he does when he’s looking for words. “I think it’s fucked up. That that happened to you,” he hurries to say, as Basti feels the color drain out of his face. “That you have to hide like some sort of criminal.”

Basti links his own fingers together under the bedsheets and squeezes as tight as he can. Lukas shifts, pushes his arm under the pillow to keep his head up, but stays looking at Basti.

“A million other guys have done a million terrible things and gotten away with it,” Lukas says. “It’s bullshit that they can treat you like that when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Hey, it comes with the job,” Basti says, ignoring his dry throat. “You know that same as I do.”

Lukas smiles at him, then, teeth white behind the shadows, and it’s slightly bitter but Basti’s breath catches all the same. “You’re good enough they couldn’t get rid of you if they wanted to,” he says. 

“I,” Basti says. “Fuck, though, they would try.”

Lukas watches him, eyes searching, and nods. “Yeah. You don’t deserve that.” He rolls onto his back, looks up at the ceiling.

“It’s one or the other,” Basti tells him.

“It shouldn’t have to be,” Lukas says, voice fierce, and when he turns his head back there’s something in his eyes Basti doesn’t know how to name.

 

The disappointment of Euro is surprisingly dull, but Basti’s aggravated ankle chooses to rub it in; he’s home for a month and then off the field again, his bones hurting so much there are days when he can’t walk, and the doctors take one look and tell him he’s going to need surgery _again_ , the second time on that damn foot, and Jesus, which god did he piss off now?

Too painful to play, too painful to do much of anything — Müller-Wohlfahrt sentences him to house rest and as little activity as physically possible, so naturally he sits at home for a week and then buys a plane ticket to London.

It’s the first time he sees Lukas’ apartment, and he doesn’t realize it until he gets there and doesn’t recognize anything; he was just imagining Lukas moving around in a smaller-scale version of his Cologne house but his apartment is clean and sparse and stylishly minimal, so Basti guesses Lukas didn’t have much of a hand in the interior decorating.

The little things make it familiar, keep it warm when Lukas is at practice in the mornings. Lukas keeps sparkling water under his counter, has a stash of German chocolate that is absolutely against his diet plan, brought the same old knitted blankets he had in Munich and then Cologne to pile on his couch, unused, waiting for Basti to rescue them and put them to good use.

Basti only stays for a week but even in that little time they set up a good rhythm: Lukas goes to training early and is back by mid-afternoon, takes a shower while Basti putters around in the kitchen and laments every grocery-shopping decision Lukas has ever made. They eat at the breakfast table that Basti is sure Lukas never used before his visit and, without fail, Lukas’ feet find his and trap them halfway through.

He has the vague idea of sightseeing but puts it out of his mind as his ankle continues to complain, restricts himself to stretches twice a day and walks down to the corner store to practice his English. Lukas smiles when he comes back six days out of seven with candy bars he has no interest in eating, obligingly wolfs them down as they channel surf for something in a language they don’t have to concentrate to understand.

The last day comes much too fast. Lukas comes back from training exhausted and doesn’t shower, doesn’t put his bag in his room, just plops down next to Basti on the couch and slumps down. Basti kicks him, says “Take your shoes off,” and throws the blanket over him. He puts water on the stove and watches Lukas breathe in and out, in and out, just a soft form under the colors.

Lukas sits up by the time the food’s cooked. He smells like sweat and dirt but when he lifts up the side of the blanket Basti slides in anyway, their legs flush against each other, both propped up on the coffee table.

They speak in short, slow sentences instead of turning the TV on. Basti thinks it’s for the sake of filling the silence, goes quiet to test the theory; sure enough, Lukas doesn’t press on with the conversation, instead just chews his food and darts glances at Basti when he thinks he’s not looking.

Lukas offers to take the bowls out when they’re done. On the way Basti sees him slip off his wedding ring; he puts it on the breakfast table and continues into the kitchen. Basti hears water begin to run.

It’s pure curiosity that moves his feet, pulls out a chair quietly and moves him to pick it up. He looks at it like he’s expecting something surprising but there’s nothing there, just a plain gold ring. The stupid, lingering desire to try it on sits in the back of his mind but he knows there’s some things you just don’t do.

“Thinking about getting hitched?” Lukas says from the doorway.

Basti looks up. “Not likely,” he says, carefully setting the ring down. It’s not something meant for his hands, that much is clear — Basti wonders if there’s some unspoken rule that only the happy couple can touch the wedding band, like a trophy.

“Really?” Lukas asks. He crosses to the table, sits down next to Basti and pulls the ring toward him. “Not Sarah?"

Basti smiles sheepishly. “Honestly, the thought never even crossed my mind.”

“Six years, not once?”

“I mean,” Basti says, “I want to get married. One day.”

“But not to her,” Lukas says, not a question.

“Not to her,” Basti says. He has a strong impulse to cave, steer the conversation into safer waters, but — fuck, he’s curious, and Lukas hasn’t put on his ring.

“Who,” Lukas says. His eyes keep flickering away from Basti’s face, like he’s not sure where to look.

Basti could tell him, now. He thinks if he was watching a movie there’d be significance to Lukas’ bare finger, not just hands still half-wet from washing and a stack of clean dishes on the counter. It seems like it would be so easy to say.

He keeps his mouth shut and shrugs, holding Lukas’ inquisitive gaze.

“Yeah,” Lukas says eventually. “Forever’s a long time.”

“Forever’s not the problem,” Basti says.

Lukas puts his ring back on.

 

Lukas’ hesitance is unnerving but Basti puts it out of his mind, sure that if there’s something Lukas wants to say he’ll tell him. Once he’s fit again all he lets himself focus on is the Champion’s League, the way they fight their way up the table for the second time in as many years, determined to give history a new victor this time.

He’s wary about being too excited; he remembers Inter, remembers Chelsea, but, well, this time it feels better than it ever has before, and even after Ilkay equalizes he has hope, so much hope, because they’re playing fast and fierce and, and, and —

And then, in typical dramatic fashion, Arjen taps one in with a minute to spare and Dortmund’s heads are already hanging. Basti barely hears the whistle blow.

He loses his shit, appropriately; screams and laughs and spends a good minute curled in on his still-tight chest, then hauls Philipp up by the waist, kisses Thomas’ whooping cheek, runs to Javi and cheers in more languages than he actually speaks. He feels impossible, overwhelmed, so god damn bright, and he never wants to let that feeling go.

Someone ties a scarf around his forehead. The trophy is huge and heavy and he barely puts it down all night. Felix shows up at the party and Basti entirely forgets to hesitate before hugging him so tightly he groans. There have got to be ten separate videos of him dancing like a fool that he can only hope people have the good judgement not to post on the Internet. 

He loses Sarah, finds her again in the crowd, finally, and they haul themselves home much later than is appropriate, him reeking of alcohol and her of cigarettes, giggling into each other’s necks.

“Oh my God, you look a wreck,” she says, leaning breathlessly against the doorframe as he struggles with the key; all he can think to do is stick his tongue out before he pushes it open and tugs her in with him, mumbles “Shhhh,” into her mouth with a stupid grin and hauls her upward.

Later, she curls into his sweaty, heaving chest and presses her smile into his skin until he stops thinking, running a hand idly through her hair. She shakes the sheet off her back and says, “So, how long are we keeping this up?”

His mind, already half-asleep with exhaustion and crashing euphoria, takes a minute to catch up. He furrows his brow and says, “Forever?”

She huffs — with the way her chin fits in the dip of Basti’s collarbone, her breath brushes the underside of his neck. He shifts slightly, says “That tickles.”

“Don’t change the subject,” she says, though she’s smiling. “It doesn’t have to be now or even soon, but Basti, you and I both know we’re pretty damn far from forever.”

“I’m happy now, actually,” he says as she wiggles her hips to get closer. 

She shakes her head slightly; he runs his hand up her back, marveling as he always does at how slight she is.

“I’ll never find anyone else like you,” he says.

“That’s okay,” she says, and suddenly, he’s terrified of who he’ll be without her. “You don’t want someone like me, and that’s okay, too.”

“I want you,” he protests weakly.

“Not enough,” she says. He closes his eyes; she pushes herself up and kisses him sweetly. “I don’t want you to love me any more than you do. You forget, I knew this coming in.”

“You did,” he breathes.

“I did,” she says, and then she pulls away to straddle him and he surges up to meet her, lets her lead.

 

The next morning her purse is on the windowsill, one of the summer dresses she’d left in his bottom drawer spilling out unceremoniously. From the way the zipper barely closes, he guesses there’s a couple more inside. He takes a deep breath and presses his face into the pillow, pulls the cover up closer, but when water turns on in the bathroom it lures his feet out from the warmth. 

His toes touch the chilly floor and make him shiver. The blanket stays caught around his shoulders until he shrugs it away, dropping into an inviting pile around his waist; he rubs his knees thoughtlessly before pushing himself up. 

Sarah’s brushing her teeth, already dressed, and looks over at him when he leans against the bathroom door. He does his best to memorize the sight.

“Just like that?” he says, voice cracking quietly from sleep.

She smiles at him through the toothpaste and nods her head towards herself. She’s still warmer than him when he comes up behind her, and she leans back as his hands fall to her waist. The steady, slight kneading of her shoulders as she brushes her teeth becomes the first of many things he fiercely regrets never noticing before.

“Not just like that,” she says, after leaning to spit into the sink and running her tongue under her top lip, a face that always makes Basti grin when he catches it in the mirror. “We can take it slow.”

Nose pressed to her hair, he breathes in: expensive lotion, smoky clothes, his drugstore shampoo. She knows herself well. 

With a thousand words on the tip of his tongue — a thousand protests, a thousand pleas, a thousand fights — he brushes his cheek against her ear and says, “Breakfast?”

“Please,” she says. “I’m starving.”

 

Rumors surface, and for once, they’re true; Sarah’s out of his house by the end of the season, although she still comes over to stay for days at a time. It’s nice, almost, like they’re just dating again, but instead of noticing she’s kept her toothbrush by his sink or stuck a coat in his bottom drawer it’s that she’s taken back her makeup stash, the shitty novels she sticks under his desk lamp, the kitschy coffee mug he bought her that changes colors when hot.

He can’t compare it to Felix leaving. A sense of something like finality, like closure, weighs on his mind; he doesn’t quite know what to do with that, a foreign concept in every way. From the way Sarah watches him — he knows, because she’s never been good at shifting her gaze fast enough — he thinks she feels the same.

That, maybe, is why they keep it going. She says there’s no one else she’s interested in at the moment, and the media has always invited scandal, and so they schedule coffee dates once a week and he stays at her place overnight when she catches cold and she keeps wearing his jersey to games, promises she’ll come to Brazil — for the beach and nothing else, she swears, smirking at him over her American-style latte. 

“Can I tell you something you don’t want to hear?” she says, long weeks after the last of her clothing has disappeared from his closet.

Basti mutes the television. “Shoot,” he says, shifting on the couch to face her fully.

“You need to tell Lukas,” she says, and immediately reaches for his hands — he’s pulled back in shock, eyes narrowing.

“Where did that come from,” he asks, wary. She shrugs.

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” she says. He rolls his eyes and picks up the remote; “I’m not finished,” she says sharply, snatching it out of his hands.

“What do you want me to say?” Basti asks. “How do you think that conversation could possibly go down?”

“You’ve always tended towards the cynical,” she says, and she’s _smiling_ , why is she _smiling_.

“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” he says, his head suddenly aching. “It’s been a fucking decade. Don’t ask me this, Sarah.”

He sees her study his face, notices her exasperated puff of breath as she concedes defeat. 

“I’ll let it go because I don’t want the stuff between us to get rough,” she says quietly. “But you think about it, Basti.”

He unmutes the television, very carefully doesn’t.

 

It’s overkill, he knows. It’s just — he’s kept a clean sheet this far through, and by now he’s well used to biting his tongue.  

 

He’s still high off of the treble when summer hits and his manager pushes him out of the city by force, says that rest will do him good. He’s been to Cabo San Lucas a couple of times before and has always enjoyed it, the wide beaches and warm weather and beer he can actually stand to drink, not like in Florida, and the idea of a couple of weeks out of the rain sounds incredible. 

Sarah has work so she sends him ahead, telling him that it’ll be good for them to be alone for a little bit. They need to get used to the difference, to being alone, but he still does his best to convince her to come with, “for old time’s sake” and everything. She’s just as stubborn as he and so he cuts his losses and makes plans with a couple old friends and newer acquaintances to see each other while he’s over there, packs for one and lets himself look forward to the quiet and the sun.

It’s nice to be on holiday at the beginning — and his body certainly thanks him for it — but he finds himself getting bored quickly, cutting through the books he brought in a matter of days and growing restless much too fast in tedious conversations with people his career has tangentially connected him to. Five days in and he’s already making excuses to skip lunch dates, instead lounging at the pool bar people-watching as his skin gets progressively redder.

It’s early afternoon and the heat is minutes away from forcing him inside when he catches the eye of a woman, tall and tanned, scanning the bar for an empty seat. He raises his eyebrows at her and nods to the seat next to him.

She smiles gratefully and steps up to the barstool. He frowns, trying to place her; she looks familiar in a way he can’t quite recognize.

“Sorry,” he says, English words feeling strange in his mouth. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

She looks at him and double-takes, then smiles and shrugs. “I play tennis,” she says, in barely-accented German, and holds out her hand. “Ana Ivanovic, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure,” he says, shaking it. “Bastian Schweinsteiger.”

She grins widely. “I’ve seen you play. My brother’s a fan of your team.”

Basti smiles, Champion’s League still at the forefront of his mind. “Bayern?”

“Don’t start boasting yet,” she warns, catching on. “I thought Dortmund were pretty good, myself.” Basti narrows his eyes; her mouth curves up into a wry smile.

“Boasting is my prerogative,” he says. She’s barefoot but he has to look up a slight inch to meet her gaze.

“Half the fun of winning, right?” He nods in agreement, and she asks the bartender for two beers. 

“Shouldn’t I be the one buying those?” Basti asks. She raises an eyebrow.

“For me and my brother,” she says mildly.

“Oh,” Basti says, turning red. Not his smoothest moment. “I just embarrassed myself properly, in that case.”

Ana laughs. “I’m sorry! I don’t really go for that.”

He gives her a sheepish half-smile that he hopes conveys something along the lines of _I am a dumbass and today’s not my best day, please don’t tell the world about my horrific flirting attempt_.

“It was very cute, though,” she says, giving him a fond look. “You tried.”

“God,” he says. “I’m going to get a beer and not talk anymore.”

She pokes him in the arm with the bottom of her bottle. “Come and sit with me and Milos, make some new friends. You two’d get along.”

“Milos?” he says. The bartender holds out his beer and he takes it with a _gracias_.

“Brother,” Ana says. “The one who was decked out in red back in May.”

He raises his eyebrows, but she pokes him again so he follows, stepping around sunbathers. She stops by the loungers in the very back, right in front of a boy who can’t be more than 25, tanned and lanky, with a towel under his head as a pillow and a book pressing into his side. 

“Milos,” Ana says, poking his foot with her toe. “I want you to meet someone.” 

His eyes blink open sleepily, but then he notices Basti and shoots up in his seat. Ana sniggers and swipes the book out from under him, sits down to his left. 

“Hi,” Basti says automatically, as his brain fills in _God damn it, he’s cute_.

“Hi,” Milos parrots, wide-eyed. He blinks and seems to come back to himself. “I guess it’s no use pretending I don’t know your name.”

Basti grins, surprised. “I mean. You can always pretend.”

“Hey, stranger,” Milos says, crossing his arms loosely. “Never seen you around here before.” He affects a terrible faux-American accent that makes Basti laugh. Basti sits down on the lounge chair across from to him, setting down his drink, and smiles back at him, careful about eye contact and body language. 

It turns out Milos lives in London, studies business and science at university; he’s been watching Bayern games since he was little but shushes Basti if he tries to talk about it, saying he doesn’t want to get “stupid and starstruck”, his own words. Normally Basti tries to avoid people who watch him play if he’s looking for good conversation but Milos is genuinely endearing, has a quick tongue and is delightfully clever. Basti doesn’t realize how long they’ve been talking until the pool has almost entirely emptied out, everyone heading to dinner or drinks before the nighttime crowd comes rushing back.

“Shit, we should go,” Milos says, looking at the empty patio. Ana has long since taken her book and abandoned them, probably for someplace with better lighting.

Basti hesitates, and then says, “Would it be presumptuous of me to invite you to my room?”

Milos gapes. Basti winces.

“Fucking,” Milos says, and then, “Yeah, _yes_.”

Basti feels himself grin. “Yes it would be presumptuous, or —”

“Room,” Milos says. “Who actually says presumptuous? Let’s go,” he insists, when Basti opens his mouth.

“Bossy,” Basti mumbles, but Milos is smiling so bright he can’t make himself keep up the charade. 

 

He doesn’t intend for it to grow into anything, honestly. When he takes Milos upstairs all he’s thinking of is a couple nights of fun, some vacation fling where they get good sex and hot-tub partners for a while and then go their separate ways; what he gets instead is bags under his eyes and three coffees at breakfast because he and Milos fucked for a truly incredible amount of time and then talked about where stars come from until three in the morning. 

The last week of his vacation is spent almost entirely with Milos and Ana. Ana forgives him for screwing her brother on the condition that he play tennis with her, something he agrees to, completely underestimating how thoroughly she can kick his ass. 

“Don’t start boasting yet,” he grumbles, retrieving the ball for what feels like the millionth time. Ana winks at Milos, watching from the sidelines, and gives Basti a smug thumbs-up.

“Your sister is a dick,” he says later, Milos’ teeth grazing his collarbone.

“My sister’s wonderful,” Milos says against his skin, and then, “Also, shut the fuck up.” He swallows Basti’s protests before he can voice them and grins all the while.

 

“I’d like to see you again,” Milos says late at night, three days before Basti has to leave.

Basti blinks, unexpecting. “Huh.”

Milos stiffens, then wriggles around in Basti’s arms, turning over until he can catch his eye. “Is that a good huh or a bad huh?”

Basti feels himself begin to smile, wonders idly when that happened. “It’s just a huh,” he says.

Milos pokes him in the chest, hard. Basti coughs and grins wider.

“Is that a,” Milos says, and then, “Stop smiling!”

“Mmm,” Basti says, and leans in. “I don’t think I will.”

He feels Milos grin beneath his lips, hauls him closer and brushes their noses together when Milos breaks the kiss to breathe.

“If that was your way of avoiding the question, Basti,” Milos says, “you’re really bad at it.”

“That was intended to be a yes,” Basti says. “It was. It was definitely a yes.”

“Oh,” Milos breathes. “Okay. Good.”

“Okay, good,” Basti mimics, eyebrows raised, and lets the strange feeling of hope fill his chest.

 

The concept of dating Milos — real, proper, exclusive dating, red roses and Valentine’s Day and calling each other _boyfriend_ — is only a fleeting thought in the back of his mind that night, but it grows in his mind, plants seeds and blooms, unprompted but not unwelcome. It’s a bizarre thought for him, but he longs for the implication of stability it brings, and it doesn’t help that he actually _likes_ Milos. 

That in itself is also bizarre. He can look at Milos, touch him, kiss him, and his mind never wanders. The “what if” that has driven his life for so long is… conspicuously absent.

He finds himself nervous in a way completely undignified for someone on the border of 29; for fuck’s sake, he’s almost thirty and he’s got butterflies over a potential relationship with a _university_ _student_.

Milos pulls him into the hallway at dinner the night before he leaves just to kiss him after an impressively stupid joke; Basti’s heart flips in a lazy, content way.

Milos cups his cheeks in both hands, gentle and warm. Something in the back of Basti’s brain says _don’t fuck this up_.

“Wait,” Basti says, leaning back. “I should. I have to say something.”

Milos furrows his brow. “What?”

“I still technically have a girlfriend.”

Milos’ eyes widen, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Basti says sheepishly. “We were together a long time. We just haven’t publicly broken up yet.”

Milos nods slowly. “Keep talking.”

Basti shifts on his feet, pulls Milos in a bit tighter. “Okay. My manager’s a bitch about this stuff and we thought we’d keep it up until after the World Cup. We got in a couple huge fights a while back and kind of mutually agreed it wasn’t working. Now it’s mostly so people don’t look my way when I do shit like this —“ here he kisses Milos swiftly on the cheek, feels him smile despite himself, “— when I do shit like that in public.”

Milos hums, smiles up at him. “You’re lucky you’re a good talker.”

Basti frowns. “Don’t say it like that. I get if you don’t want to be, I don’t know, with me, when she’s still in the picture—“

“Is that what I said?” Milos says sternly. “That’s not what I said.”

He reaches up a hand, smoothes the wrinkles over Basti’s eyebrow, and Basti already doesn’t want to give him up.

 

Basti has to leave the next morning, too early for Milos to be out of bed but late enough that he’s blinking awake when Basti gets out of the shower, slips into a clean button-down and throws his last bag over his shoulder.

“I’m off,” he whispers, trying not to disturb the quiet. Milos mumbles something incoherent but sits up slowly, hair adorably tousled, and gestures for Basti to sit next to him. They kiss gently, mouths barely open, Milos’ hand fisted loosely in his shirt.

He pulls away. Their noses brush when Milos says, “Are you actually going to call?”

“I plan on it,” Basti tells him, kisses him once more for the road.

 

He gets a picture message during his layover, Louis running along a span of trees with a football and the side of Lukas’ broad grin.

It makes him smile. He thinks maybe that’s all he needs.

 

Munich welcomes him back with chilly weather and gray skies; he hauls his things into his house and collapses immediately in bed, sighing at his own worn-in sheets. There’s still no practice for almost a week, and the house seems too empty, so he starts on his laundry list of _guess who’s back_ messages: the team Whatsapp; Tobias; his dad; his mother, although he’s still not sure she actually knows how to answer a text; Sarah; his manager; Lukas. 

After a moment of hesitancy, he adds Milos to the list, too.

 

They talk more often than he ever expects, especially once Milos gets back to school, and it reminds him uncannily of nights spent waiting for notifications after Kaiserslautern, when he was so high on Lukas that the next message was all he could think of. Basti takes the comparisons and files them away. Milos invites him to London.

He calls Sarah, half-enamored and half-panicked, the next morning.

“You want me to tell you to date him, don’t you,” she says, after he explains.

“I mean,” Basti says. “I want to know what you think?”

“Don’t do it,” she says immediately. Basti grits his teeth — not this again, not her damn crusade to get him to lose the best friend he’s ever had because of a stupid fucking crush.

“Do you have a reason besides the one I already know?”

“You know what I’m going to say,” she says firmly. “You need to tell Lukas.”

“You said that last time,” he says, exasperated. “Do you have any helpful advice?”

“That is my helpful advice,” she says. “Tell him. Worst case scenario you finally get that weight off your shoulders, best case scenario you elope to Istanbul.”

“Ha ha,” Basti deadpans. “Come on.”

“If he doesn’t reciprocate, sure, whatever, date the guy. But for fuck’s sake, Basti, don’t push that shit down.”

 _If he doesn’t reciprocate_ , Basti thinks, slightly hysterically. “Christ, Sarah, I was asking for your help.”

She snorts, sounding incredulous; he hangs up before she can give him any more terrible advice and dials Felix.

He knows it’s been a while since they talked and hopes fervently that Felix won’t hold it against him, but he doesn’t know who else to call. Sarah’s idea is out of the question.

“Basti?” Felix says when he picks up.

“Hi,” Basti says. “I’m sorry. Can you tell me if something I’m about to do is really stupid?”

Felix pauses. “Yeah, one sec,” he says, and Basti hears him moving around, like he’s leaving a room. “Alright, shoot,” Felix says a moment later. Basti smiles — he’s not mad at him, at least — and goes for honesty.

“I was in Mexico over the break and I met someone. A guy. And we slept together or whatever and he wants to see me again and I want to see him again but I haven’t been in a normal relationship in so long and there’s still the. There’s still the lingering issue.”

Felix makes a humming noise; Basti can almost see him furrowing his brow. “The lingering issue. Lukas.”

“Yeah,” Basti says, exhaling. “But it’s different now, I think?”

“Different how?”

“It’s like I’m used to it, somehow, but that can’t be it because that would have happened a million years ago.”

“Are you getting over him,” Felix says softly.

Basti bites his tongue, lets his head loll back and watches the plain white ceiling. _Getting over it_ is a strong term. He doesn’t think that’s how it works with Lukas. Maybe he’s just finally loving him right.

“Something like that,” he says.

“And do you think you can be with this guy? Love him back?”

“I think I might be out of practice at it,” Basti says, “But. I think I could. I think I can.”

He hears Felix breathe in deep on the other line, and then say, steady, “I think you should do it.”

Basti blinks at his kitchen table. “Just like that?”

There’s a rustling of fabric on the other end that he thinks is Felix shrugging. “If you can love him. If you want to love him. You shouldn’t have to spend your whole life pining after someone.”

Basti chuckles wryly. “Should have told me that in 2004,” he says, and then, “Thanks. Felix. For this, and for everything else."

“No problem,” Felix says. “Keep me updated, yeah?”

“Of course,” Basti says, feeling the first tingles of relief worm their way into his muscles, and as he hangs up he hears Felix yell, “And send me a picture!”

Basti smiles and finds Milos’ name in his contact list. Just like that.

 

They make a date a month from then, when Basti knows he’ll have days off and Milos’ classes only run until noon. He’s used to flying into Heathrow — to see Lukas, he thinks with a pang — but if Milos picks him up at Stanstead there’s less of a risk of someone seeing.

“I’m supposed to be dating your sister, you know,” Basti says fondly, Milos’ wavery Skype portrait perched on his coffee table.

“Not yet,” Milos says. “Not until the World Cup, right?” He’s got a textbook on his knee but seems to have abandoned it and instead slumped down against the headboard of his bed, looking for all the world like the model in some terrible advertisement for student housing linens.

“Right,” Basti confirms. “Sarah’ll come to Brazil and then we’ll all be in New York. That’s not a problem?”

Milos shrugs. “I mean, we couldn’t be seen together anyway.”

“You say that pretty casually,” Basti says. If he thinks about it too much he feels guilty; Milos deserves someone he can go out in public with.

Milos shrugs again, gives Basti a sideways smile. “I’ll get fed up with it eventually, I’m sure. Enjoy my easygoing nature while it lasts.”

“If you turn into the Grinch three months in I’m out,” Basti says. When Milos flips him off with a pitch-perfect bored expression he laughs until his ribs hurt. 

 

London’s absolutely miserable when his plane lands, but no matter; Milos waits for him at the baggage carousel and leads him out of the airport the long way just to have a hallway to themselves. Milos pulls Basti’s face up to him and kisses him breathless, and Basti has to temper his wandering hands. 

They get to Milos’ apartment in the early evening and Milos confesses that he can’t cook worth a damn. Instead of Milos’ plan — “Take-out, on my first day here, come on, see, this is why I never went to university,” — Basti scrapes together the last vestiges of useful food in his kitchen and throws together a pasta, simple and patchwork but pretty good, if he does say so himself. Milos watches him the whole time, and Basti blames his red cheeks on the heat of the stove.

They eat dinner on Milos’ countertop and then fuck on the couch, Milos’ legs around Basti’s waist, pulling him in. That night, curled up in bed, Milos’ fingers tangled with his own, he wonders if it’ll always be like this. 

 

That Saturday, Milos needs to be gone all day so Basti finds a bus map and takes off on his own with the excuse of sightseeing. He intends to do exactly that, too, except he gets lost and the clouds grow darker and his English gets progressively shittier as the day goes on and well, what else was he supposed to do?

He speed-dials 10.

“Hey,” Basti says straight after the click, out of breath from the maniac drivers that seem determined to take his head off before he can even get into to the city itself. “Where are you?”

“Where am I,” Lukas says into his ear, bordering on incredulous. “Hi, Basti, nice to hear from you, how have you been, what do you _mean_ , where am I?”

“Don’t get sarcastic,” Basti says, already laughing; God, he missed his voice. “Are you driving?”

“Right now?” Lukas says. “Yes. Just got out of training, what are you on about?”

“If I give you an address of one of these million houses I’m about to hide in to escape the rain, do you want to get lunch?”

“It’s not raining yet,” Lukas says automatically — Basti bites his lip, waiting for it to click, and then — “Are you in fucking London, Basti?”

Basti hums happily, ducks under a storefront as the first drops fall from the sky. Lukas says so loudly the phone buzzes with it, “You _dick_ , where are you?”

 

Lukas’ Audi splashes Basti’s legs when he finally pulls up to the curb, a sopping wet twenty minutes later. Basti pulls himself into the warmth as fast as he can and slams the door shut.

“Fucking finally,” he says, relieved, and looks over into Lukas’ broad grin.

It’s not easy to hug over the gearshift but they make it work, Basti’s wet arms around Lukas’ neck and Lukas’ hands trying their best to reach his back. There’s a damp patch on Lukas’ cheek when they pull apart; Basti can see it shine slickly. He smiles idiotically.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Lukas says back, grin just as stupid as his own. “You wouldn’t happen to remember the name of that deli you like, would you?”

 

It hasn’t been _that_ long since international break, but it could have been years as far as Basti’s concerned: his veins still buzz like they did the first time. He needles Lukas relentlessly about his driving and winces every time he has to make a turn, unused to the reversed lanes — Lukas cackles at the look on his face and reminds him of the first time Basti took him to Oberaudorf, speeding like a maniac on the winding mountain roads with Lukas white-knuckled in the passenger seat, threatening him in Polish.

“You were threatening me?” Basti says, laughing.

“Of course I was threatening you,” Lukas says. “I remember it distinctly. I said I was going to throw you off the mountain.”

“Ow,” Basti says, elbowing him. Lukas throws him a shit-eating grin.

 

The deli’s a little place they found last time Basti visited, ramshackle and away from the public eye, with a sweet old Italian lady who smiles with all of her yellow teeth and pushes them to look at the dessert menu while they’re at it. Lukas orders a sandwich and Basti gets fish and chips, remarking that after all the times he’s visited he still hadn’t ever tried them in London proper. 

Inevitably, Lukas asks why he’s come.

“A visit,” Basti says vaguely.

“Not to me, obviously,” Lukas says as the waitress sets their plates down in front of them; he thanks her in English and shifts his focus back to Basti, never looking to the food.

“Yeah,” Basti says. “I got in on Wednesday and stayed in a hotel near his place, outside the city.”

“Wednesday,” Lukas says.

“Yeah.”

A strange look crosses Lukas’ face — Basti feels momentarily guilty. 

“I’m not supposed to be here at all,” he says apologetically. “And I couldn’t really be seen. If I was with you, someone’d know.”

Lukas raises his eyebrow. “That makes sense,” he says, sounding unconvinced.

“I’m sorry,” Basti says, and kicks against Lukas’ ankle under the table. Lukas traps his foot between his own, looks up and smiles, hesitancy slipping away just like that. 

“No big deal,” Lukas says, picking up his sandwich. “So he’s —”

Basti picks up on the open end of the question, says “I met him in Mexico. I think I mentioned him.”

“Maybe you forgot,” Lukas says, mouth full.

“No, I didn’t,” Basti says. He pokes at his own meal, decides the fries are a safer option. “Milos Ivanovic?”

Lukas’ face lights up. “Tennis brother!”

“Tennis brother,” Basti says incredulously. “You are unbelievable.”

Lukas hums. Basti steals a sip of his drink, and Lukas says, “So, are you and him.”

He pulls his Coke back towards him, lips wrapping around the straw like Basti’s had a moment before. When he blinks up through his lashes Basti is very careful to look away.

“I think so,” he says, watching the rain-soaked passerby walk shoulder-close to their companions. Something brushes his knuckle.

Lukas is earnest and soft-voiced. His fingers hover over the curve of Basti’s palm.

“I’m happy for you, hey.”

Basti thinks he shouldn’t have come.

 

The spring season comes and goes. He barely recognizes his own voice, the loose way his body moves, the new, natural inclination of his mouth to smile instead of scowl. He trains, attends meetings, shows the new transfers the city during the day and calls his boyfriend at night, thrilled with the easy way he takes to — to this, to living without fear, his constantly unfolding life leading him where it will.

 

Philipp’s weary head falls onto his shoulder on the plane flight to Rio. Thomas takes bets as to who’ll get caught off their training plans by the coaches first. Miro plays just as he did in 2006 and the little ones buzz with nerves he remembers well and Brazil is much too beautiful for him to forget to smile, even when the games get rough, even when his aching knee and tired lungs remind him that all good things come to an end. 

This year, he can watch Lukas without guilt. This year, they show each other off like they’re nineteen again and he lets himself think nothing of it at all.

 

Round of 16 was expected. Quarter-finals make him antsy. The 7-1 is unexpected and lingers with him in a way he doesn’t like, too familiar with that crashing humiliation, so he does his best to comfort the players he can; he’ll take what he has to to win, but it shouldn’t have been like this.

They watch Argentina play the Netherlands as a group, perched at an outdoor bar or huddled at tables in front of it. He stops texting Milos long enough to hold his breath, and then Romero is howling at the open sky, all pride, all triumph.

 

He’s used to the feeling he gets before big games, nervous and slightly sick, but the morning of the final is beyond anything he’s ever felt before; as he walks through the stadium corridors he categorizes every muscle in his body — the jittery way they jump, the tightness in his chest he can’t play off as having run — and prays to whatever god will listen that they have one more fight left in them.

Fingers wrap around his wrist from behind. He lets himself be pulled to the side, opens the door that appears in front of him.

They enter a small, empty hallway, and as Basti leans against the wall Lukas shuts the door behind them.

Basti doesn’t like disassociating. The lack of control terrifies him and he’s not sure if it even helps him play better, but sometimes it’s necessary when all the parts of him driven by logic are saying _turn tail and run_. 

“Basti,” Lukas says, hands hanging loosely at his sides. Basti reaches out and takes them.

“Once more,” he hears himself say, as if from far away.

“Once more,” Lukas repeats. He puts his hands on Basti’s hips. They warm him even through the thin fabric of the kit.

A part of Basti comes back to him. He wraps his arms around Lukas’ neck, as tight as he can, and Lukas pushes the hem of his shirt aside to get hands around his waist.

“Ten years,” Lukas mumbles into his shoulder. Basti holds tighter.

Lukas presses two kisses into his cheek before he lets go, high under his eye, and Basti smiles helplessly at Lukas’ unsteady breath. 

The rest of him is already out on that pitch, but he doesn’t mind leaving something behind.

 

What they don’t tell you when you’re younger is how the game breaks you down. He watches Argentina, lean and dangerous in their ocean-blue kits, and they become the sum of their parts: the shield, the thinker, the sword-arm, the prodigal son. His nerves slip away. Messi’s just a man.

 

They play well, and hard, a fury he feels humming through all of them barely hidden under their skin. There’s none of the recklessness of 2006, none of the desperation of 2010, and he knows halfway through that no matter the outcome this is the best he’s ever been. If not for the insistence of his teammates, Agüero’s fist wouldn’t have even gotten him off the field — as it is, he only leaves long enough for them to staple the cut together.

He raises his hand to go back into the game, looks back at the bench. Lukas is standing up, watching Basti with wide eyes, and he must look wild, must look mad, only realizes in Lukas’ startled expression that the rust he licked away at the corner of his mouth was blood. Someone pulls Lukas back down into his seat. 

He thinks he should say _don’t worry_ , but Lukas can’t hear him, and once his feet are on the field he doesn’t think at all anyway.

 

He doesn’t think.

He doesn’t think when the cut under his eye opens anew, he doesn’t think when his knee shoots stabbing pain through the muscle of his leg, he doesn’t think as chance after chance is wasted before it could even come into being.

Mario scores, and he doesn’t think, because if he does his traitorous brain will say that it’s over, and he can’t afford that, not now, not after so long. He runs away from the frantic pile of his teammates and clings to whoever reaches out until the game starts again.

Seven minutes becomes five, becomes three, becomes one, and Argentina can’t make it.

The whistle blows.

The whistle blows and the crowd roars and there are hands on his back and arms tugging at his waist and someone’s whooping into his ear, someone’s screaming his name but he stumbles blindly away from the mob of teammates, looks up into the Rio lights, into the sea of screaming spectators, the undulating colors, black, red, gold, black, red, gold.

They won. They won they won they won they won they won —

He almost bites through his lip on the first sob, gets his hands over his mouth by the second and suddenly he can’t stop _crying_ , whole body shaking with it, ignoring his desperate pleas to his own mind to hush because they’ve won the World Cup and all he can think of is Dortmund, is Durban, is Vienna and Warsaw and Madrid and Munich and all of the times his best wasn’t good enough and now. Now every inch of his body stings and blood’s already building up to drip down his cheek and he thinks if he died tomorrow he’d be a happy man, because Germany will raise the Cup and they’ll come back to Berlin with their heads held high and maybe he was put here for a reason, after all.

The field comes back into focus and he lets Thomas, wild whooping Thomas pull him into the pile of bodies he knows are his teammates, his brothers, the reason he wakes up in the morning. Someone yells his name into his ear and someone else fists a hand in his shirt and tugs him to his knees and he loves them so much he can’t think for it.

“Weltmeister!” someone cheers, and they catch onto the chant and build it up, _Weltmeister, Weltmeister, Weltmeister, Weltmeister_ —

He’s grinning so hard it hurts, tearing the cut under his eye; someone pulls him out of the crush of arms and he knows it’s Lukas by the way his fingers tighten around his wrist, the way he laughs into the side of Basti’s cheek before letting him see his face — the way he feels next to Basti, basically, so familiar Basti’s heart aches with it, like Lukas’ steady weight by his side this whole time had just been leading up to this, to Lukas pulling Basti into the middle of the field under brilliant Rio lights while their teammates laugh around them, holding up his phone and pulling him close and saying “Kiss me.”

Basti bites his lip, smiles wide, and does.

 

The trophy feels heavy in his hands, but it’s a happy weight. He shakes hands with the Chancellor of his country and she tells him she’s proud of him, feeling like the long-awaited conclusion to so long ago when she watched him in disapproval as he threw every chance he was given away. They all push Phillip to the forefront and he raises the Cup high, high, high.

Afterwards, in the hallways to the outside, someone pulls Basti aside for a few words and next thing he knows Lukas is next to him, so comfortable under his arm, cradling the trophy like he used to cradle his child, and Basti wants to giggle at the comic comparison but instead settles for answering the interviewer’s questions as best he can because Lukas keeps pressing closer but doesn’t seem to want to talk. The little he does say is short and obviously rehearsed, and Basti doesn’t know if it’s nerves or if it hasn’t sunk in yet or if Lukas just doesn’t know what to say but he thanks everyone he can think of over and over again while Lukas watches him from the side, eyes crinkling up at the corners, breath warm on Basti’s cut cheek. Cristoph comes over and pushes them even closer together, and by the time they’re free to go Basti has both hands on Lukas’ shoulders, is already drunk on the ability to say _thank you, thank you for everything, we finally won_.

Lukas pushes his forehead into Basti’s neck and doesn’t say anything; the World Cup digs into Basti’s ribs until someone slips it out of Lukas’ grip but Lukas stays there, quiet and disbelieving, and Basti presses his smile into the top of Lukas’ head and steers them outside.

Someone pulls Lukas away from him in the crush of people on the way to the afterparty. Basti doesn’t see him again until he shows up at the beach house in the early morning, showered, in clean clothes, infuriatingly sober.

“What the fuck, dude,” Basti says, only slurring a little. “You look great. How dare you.”

“Yeah, I put on a normal shirt for once,” Lukas says in his ear. “How’s the party?”

“Fantastic. Drinks are great. Lot of Portuguese.”

“You don’t say,” Lukas says. “Did you lose Sarah or are you only hanging onto my arm because you can’t stand up straight?”

Basti drops his hands immediately; he hadn’t really realized he was leaning into Lukas, fingers wrapped around his upper arms, but maybe his intoxication is a little more obvious that he thought.

“I don’t want to answer that,” Basti mumbles. “Sarah leaves early. You have a kid somewhere still?”

Lukas laughs. “I took him and Miro’s twins to bed, in case you haven’t noticed my absence,” he says, raising his eyebrows as Basti sways inelegantly. “Do you want to sit down?”

“No,” Basti says clearly. “I want to dance.”

“You’ve been dancing for hours, I’ll bet,” Lukas says. “Give your body a break.”

“No,” Basti says again, just to be stubborn. Lukas grabs his face in both hands and swipes his thumb under Basti’s eye; it comes away red.

“Give your body a break,” he repeats, fingers still pressed to the hollow of Basti’s cheek.

“I’m good,” Basti says, and the drink has blurred his thinking enough that he can’t quite grasp what Lukas is worried about, focuses instead on the way Lukas’ blue eyes look behind the crimson flash of skin. 

“Are you?” Lukas asks.

“Red was never your color,” Basti says. It’s ugly, he thinks. It makes Lukas’ eyes narrow, sets his jaw, makes his grip tighter out of anger, not wanting.

“You’re not making any sense,” Lukas tells him. His thumb disappears and Basti can smile at him again.

“Come dance with me,” Basti says.

He grabs Lukas’ wrist and pulls him into the crowd, finds him a virgin cocktail on some plate somewhere and then drags him under the flashing lights until he concedes defeat and forgets to be self-conscious when the songs get faster. Per joins them, and Shkodran too; Miro wanders over and gives his wry opinion of their dancing skills, Jérôme pushes Mario into the fray, and the others keep passing by until Basti’s sure the whole team has seen the way he can’t keep his body still. Most of them have bought him drinks, to boot.

Per drifts away, and Sami swings by and gets Shkodran under the arm that he’s not holding Mesut with. The music changes to something less loud, something where Basti knows he can’t let himself listen to the lyrics too closely. 

He thinks about slow music and fairytale endings, the things we want versus the things we get. At some point in the night Lukas laced their fingers together and he hasn’t yet let go.

The figures behind them calm, sway in time.

 

That night, he falls asleep thinking of the weight of the trophy in his hands, the disbelieving faces of his teammates, the overpowering, heady glee shooting through every inch of his body, finally, finally.

He wakes up thinking of Lukas, beautiful and breathless under Rio lights, saying _kiss me_.

Finally, finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, the milos thing.
> 
> i kind of feel bad about it, to be honest? ana and basti are SO CUTE, you don't get it, i want them to be happy forever and have cute little serbian-german athletic children that take over the world one day. i'm very pro-ana and i don't want to invalidate one of the few relationships basti has with a woman in this fic!
> 
> that being said, his relationship with milos came out of two things: one, my friend saw a video of them eating something somewhere ambiguous and said if she didn't know better, she would have thought that basti was with milos, not ana; and two, that it was important for him to have a proper relationship with a man before lukas. there were tons of tiny other reasons for it but i won't bore you with the details.
> 
> so, yeah! thank you for reading and waiting, i hope you enjoyed, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message on tumblr (madanach) or twitter (@anahaedra). ~~third chapter won't be prolonged as long as this one was, i promise!!~~ we've all made promises we couldn't keep


	3. 2015 - 2019

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It didn't go away, not ever, not really._
> 
> Basti falls in love with Lukas on a bitter-cold Tuesday night as Lukas sips Glühwein from a ceramic mug and wrinkles his red nose in Basti’s direction, illuminated by buzzing golden lights, smelling of laundry detergent and pine. The rest, as they say, is history.
> 
> Written for the Schweinski Holiday Fic Exchange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ten years later: voila.
> 
> i don't own anyone in this fic, but i may have predicted the outcome of euro 2016, in which case you all are fucking welcome

There’s an element of the fantastic to Basti’s life after Rio.

Though technically life goes on as it always does, Basti can’t help but be swept away by all of it. His 30th birthday is the best he’s ever had at his life. For the first time, he has a boyfriend to dote on, a —fake — girlfriend to flaunt to the cameras, a best friend to keep him laughing. The months blur together, Milos’ graduation into his trip to Australia into his first few minutes back, so happy to be on the pitch again after weeks and weeks of injury that he crows in triumph in the locker room after the game and lets Pep shake his head, the rest of the team clap him on the back.

They make him captain. He knew it would happen, but it’s still thrilling, down to his bones. Milos calls to congratulate him and they get sidetracked, only realize that it’s technically the morning when Milos tries to look something up on his phone and makes a scandalized noise so overtly ridiculous that Basti laughs out loud.

“Go to sleep!” Milos says, when Basti asks what that was about. “Jesus, it’s 1 AM there. Shit.”

“We were in the middle of a conversation,” Basti says. “Fuck the time.”

“You have a match tomorrow,” Milos says, laughing. “I’m not going to be responsible for you losing your good form." 

“You wouldn’t be responsible for anything,” Basti says. He imagines the way Milos’ cheeks turn red in those moments when he really _gets_ the implications of their relationship. Basti knows what it’s like to be starstruck, but sometimes he wonders what Milos is thinking about all of this.

“I’d feel responsible,” Milos says, still a slight humor in his voice. “Sadly, I’m kinda invested in you winning.”

“Imagine that,” Basti says; all his musings seem barely important when Milos laughs. “I wish you could be there.”

Milos exhales. “Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Yeah, me too.”

Basti pulls his bedsheets tighter around him. “I miss you,” he says after a moment, unused to the vulnerability.

“Don’t say that,” Milos says softly. “I. This is already so hard.”

It’s stupid that he feels responsible for the way Milos’ voice quiets, but he does, regardless. Though all his relationships have had an element of distance in them it’s never been like this, both removed and so much closer than anyone he’s ever been with. He barely remembers his last exclusive relationship. He wishes he barely remembered the last time he wanted to crawl into someone’s bed through the sound of their voice over the phone, but.

Pushing the thought away, he looks for words of reassurance. “I know,” he says eventually, the best he can come up with; Milos breathes out heavily and says, “I wish I could kiss you right now.”

Oh, God. Basti scowls at his empty bed. “You’ll be here soon,” he says vehemently. “I’ll get your whole family tickets if I need to. You’ll be here soon.”

“Go to bed, Basti,” Milos says. There — that’s it, Basti can hear his smile again. He smiles, too.

“I am,” Basti says. “I love you.”

Milos sucks in a sharp breath a thousand miles away; Basti matches it involuntarily.

“Basti,” Milos says.

Basti presses the back of his hand to his mouth and realizes that he meant it.

 

In the back of his mind, Basti knows that there’s another side to the story that he’s missing. While his relationship with Milos flourishes, the papers write uglier and uglier things about Lukas that Basti can’t help but hear. After the Bayern fiasco Basti stopped listening to tabloids, but it comes under his nose anyway, and all history aside, Lukas is his best friend. He hasn’t reached out for help, hasn’t mentioned much to Basti besides the requisite gripes and complaints about playtime — which Basti responds with calculated jibes about anyone at Arsenal he knows the name of, just so Lukas can chuckle, redeem the good ones and condemn the bad — and Basti likes to think that if it was enough to warrant worry, he’d know.

It only assuages those hidden fears a bit when Lukas texts him a picture from Milan, all smiles, hours before the official announcement. He can’t think of any of it too much — it makes him sick to his stomach, all that vitriol. The same thing happened at Bayern; now it’s something Basti can recognize, unhappy with the reminder that all this smiling and _Forza Inter_ is Lukas, not for the first time, getting out.

Even now, Basti marvels at his strength. At Bayern, the world turns on.

 

It’s not surprising that his teammates catch onto his newfound relationship bliss, especially with the way he knows he smiles at Milos’ texts, too wide to be anyone else.

“Ana?” Thomas asks him, after a particularly undignified grin.

Basti shakes his head without, and then, at Thomas’ inquisitive gaze, shrugs. “It’s hard to explain.”

Thomas rolls his shoulders and plops down on the bench next to him. “I’m listening.”

There’s a long moment of silence where Basti considers his options, but fuck — it’s a new year, and he’s hopeful and happy and feels so light.

Basti says, “So what if I told you the papers got the wrong Ivanovic?”

 

He wouldn’t say it becomes an open secret, exactly, but after Thomas comes Philipp, then Holger, then Manu, and after a while people just know. Besides a few less-than-ideal reactions — “Are you _really_?” Mario says through his hands, grinning for some bewildering reason, whereas Xabi just blinks at him and says in Spanish, “What?” — he’s pleasantly surprised by how it goes down, barely any hint of the fear and nausea he kept so readily hidden in 2009.

“Maybe times are changing,” he tells Philipp, satisfied with the lack of tension stitching its way into his shoulders.

Robert howls across the dressing room, “Basti, how does my ass look in these jeans?” and Philipp shakes his head, says, “Yeah, I guess they are.”

 

Euro creeps up on them; he feels like he just got back from Rio, the win so fresh in his mind. He’s been captain for over a year and it still hasn’t sunk in. 

He comes to France late, just by a day but he misses the rest of the Bayern boys and so flies in later, only figures out a couple minutes before he boards the plane that Lukas is arriving late, too. Smiling, he waits for him just inside the exit gate and pulls him into a hug as he approaches, Lukas embracing back warmly but the muscles in his shoulders are tight.

Basti watches him as they walk out, the quickness of his movements, the barely-visible hint of a strain in his smile. When he looks at Basti it’s with quiet relief, but not joy.

“Is something up?” Basti asks lowly. Lukas looks over from where he had been staring at the floor, brows knit, and shakes his head.

“I’m good,” he says. “Why?”

Basti brushes their shoulders together. “You’re messing with your ring,” he says.

Lukas’ hand immediately stills — he had been rubbing his thumb against the inside of his palm — and he sets his jaw.

“That’s bad news,” Basti says quietly, not enjoying the hints of Lukas pulling into himself. “But you don’t have to tell me.”

Lukas shakes his head again, nudges Basti towards the airport exit. “I want to tell you,” he says as they leave, suitcases bumping over the uneven concrete. “I just don’t know what there is to say.”

“It happens,” Basti says. He waves for a taxi and Lukas stands next to him, close enough that Basti can feel the presence of another body but not enough for them to actually touch. “You can talk to me, though, yeah?”

Lukas just smiles at him.

When they get into the back of the cab, Lukas takes off his ring, fiddles with it in his lap. The gold glints in the light.

Slowly, without looking at Basti, he slides it back on.

 

Basti stays just a little closer to Lukas after that, but they’re well-practiced at this, by now. They do what they’ve always done.

 

France welcomes them, their draw providing just enough of a challenge to keep them on their toes. Basti’s personal favorite part is the game he makes out of it once Milos and Ana arrive, sneaking away at the oddest hours, see what he can steal from his eager, blushing partner in crime before his phone buzzes with news that the captain is needed back at his post.

He’s smart enough not to let it become a distraction. By the time they make it to the semifinals, Milos steps back into another role, no less important, but quieter. He finds Basti in the hallways of hotels he shouldn’t be in and kisses him until he thinks he’ll be able to sleep.

It’s raining in Marseille the day they face Belgium. The tie persists for 76 minutes in the senseless, shivering summer warmth; Jogi subs Lukas on with twenty minutes to spare and it’s that that makes the difference.

Basti to André to Mario, André, Toni, Mario, and then it’s Lukas, and his left foot has never let him down.

They scream so loud, it’s like they’re young again.

 

Another final, another title so close, just within arm’s reach. Clapping everyone he can on the shoulder, they filter back into their changing room after interviews and high-fiving with high hopes for the future, excited to see who their opponents will be, for a chance, yet again, at glory.

The adrenaline drains out of him the minute he leaves the crowd, pulling his jersey over his head and staring blankly at his shadow of a reflection in the glossed back of his locker.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Lukas gathering his things and heading toward the door and thinks, _not yet, not yet_.

“Lukas,” he says quickly, louder than he intends. Lukas turns back to him in surprise. “Can you wait?”

Lukas blinks but nods. There are only a few other people left in the room and they filter out quickly, eager to celebrate their win — and, Basti thinks, probably eager to leave him and Lukas alone.

The last person shuts the door behind them. Lukas sits on the bench at the side of the room and watches as Basti folds his clothes, sticks his boots in his bag, then finally sighs and looks up.

He considers Lukas. Back in normal clothes, he looks much as he always does, but now Basti can see creases at the corner of his eyes, at the sides of his mouth, thanks God that his hair is still treading the line between dirty blond and light brown instead of mimicking Basti’s own gray-turned-white. Now, he sits with his back straight and chin up, childhood slouch forgotten, even though he still runs with his head in front of him. Basti can see twelve years in the way his fingers twine together in his lap.

It’s almost too much. Basti makes himself move, sit down next to him; he can’t say what he needs to if Lukas is watching him like that.

“I, uh,” he starts, uncomfortably aware of how his voice sounds in the empty room, and then Lukas pushes in next to him so their bodies touch, shoulders down to their toes. Basti breathes in and continues. “I don’t know what Jogi’s planning for the final. And I think you proved everyone wrong today and fuck, I hope he plays you, I really do, but —“

“Basti,” Lukas says.

Basti can’t look at him. He stares straight ahead and ignores his stinging eyes, even when Lukas’ arm finds its way around his shoulders, even though he can tell Lukas is watching every movement his face makes. If he looks at Lukas he’ll cry, and if he says what he needs to say — _I’ve had the best fucking time with you_ — he’ll cry harder.

“Jesus, Basti,” Lukas says, and Basti hears his voice crack.

“Yeah,” is all Basti can say. Lukas crowds in further; Basti feels breath on his ear and then lips on his temple, filling in for words as Lukas’ arm pulls him tighter.

“Twelve years,” Lukas says against Basti’s skin, voice audibly shaking. “We’ve been — twelve years.”

Basti laughs unsteadily. “You,” he says, in lieu of anything else. Lukas catches it.

“Glad it was you,” he says. “It’s so. Basti.”

“You too,” Basti says. He thinks about Lukas’ arm around his shoulder during the anthem and the wild way he runs to Basti after scoring and his heat under hotel room covers in strange cities, all the things they will never have again. “You too.”

 

The Dutch knock out France in their typical way — on home soil, too, which seems like even more of an affront. Basti’s not sure if this outcome would have been preferable; he knows Arjen, true, and likes him marvelously when he doesn’t have to face him on the pitch, but the Netherlands are aggressively confident and though Basti knows his team has heart and talent, they’ll need luck, too.

He’s never known how to give pep talks, though Jogi and Lukas and anyone else he asks swears he does fine. Looking around the circle they’ve made in the locker room, all faces white and set, it doesn’t seem like anything he could say would be enough.

Instead, he takes a moment after Jogi’s brief and goes to each of them at their lockers, talks in a tone quiet enough that their neighbor can’t hear, and hopes to God that he’s got the words right.

 

It goes like this:

Arjen scores 19 minutes in, and Van Persie doubles it at ’36. That ends the Netherlands’ reign of glory. After a hopelessly curled corner kick gets one past Cilessen immediately after half-time, the Dutch scatter, all tactics lost to the wind, pushing too quickly in front where they can and throwing their bodies down when they can’t. Basti can’t help his jubilation when Marco equalizes with ten minutes to spare, crashes into him and kisses his temple in thanks, unable to control his grin.

That being said, his frustration grows as they go into extra time. A tie will not win them the game, and they _should_ be able to profit off of this, the Netherlands growing even more frantic as Germany stays steady, just like they’re supposed to, just like Basti wanted.

He hates penalty shootouts with every fiber of his being, even more so now that once he steps up to that line every field looks like Munich, every keeper like Čech, fear uncoiling from low in his gut to condense in every vein he has.

They give him the first shot, as is his due. He makes it. For the rest all he can do is watch, and count, and pray.

1-0.

1-1.

2-1.

3-1.

3-2.

4-2.

Arjen steps up.

Not a single body in the crowd takes a breath.

4-2.

Basti clenches his fists and exhales as relief crashes around him like a wave.

Later he’ll lift the trophy high, scream as loud as the rest of them and then louder, tug Ana down from the stands and kiss her with Milos right behind them, grinning bright.

For now, though, he raises his gaze to the sky and lets the wild, searching hands of his teammates pull him into the crush.

 

He can’t believe it. After so long, twelve-plus years of training and working and worrying, old friends leaving and new ones taking their places, watching Micha and Arne and Mario and all of the others get so close and then have to step down — after so long, they’ve done it.

Rio was unbelievable enough. This doesn’t seem like it’s happening at all.

“Am I going to wake up?” Lukas tells him, knees pulled up to his chest on the flight to the Fanmeile, still wearing their country’s colors like he, too, feels naked without them. Basti knocks his headphones down from his ears to concentrate on the question completely, takes in the quiet, satisfied curve of his smile, so different from how he saw it in Brazil.

“I hope not,” Basti says, and pinches Lukas’ wrist to make a point. Lukas swats his hand away and tilts his body towards the space between them.

 

They make the video three days later from a hotel room in Berlin; though the others went back to their hometowns after the win they chose to stay, just for a while longer, the rest of the team too aware of the impending announcement to raise any objections. Their cities wondered about the whereabouts of their favorite sons, but there are some things that can wait.

Basti’s laptop sits on the coffee table as they speak. The words are only half-rehearsed and Lukas lets Basti talk most of the time, running through the requisite thank you’s as Lukas nods in the corner of his eye. He’s very proud of his steady voice, all things considered.

Lukas thanks his family, his friends, Cologne. Basti thanks the DFB and only says the word _retirement_ once.

It clocks in as a minute and a half of their voices, luckily audible over the humming of the air conditioner and the rustling of Lukas’ legs as he shifts. Basti drags the video to the status bar in his Twitter screen, says, “Well?”

“I don’t want to watch it,” Lukas says softly.

His voice sounds odd. Basti twists to look at him, but his expression is stony, unreadable. It takes a moment for Basti to realize that this is what Lukas looks like when he’s about to cry.

“Okay,” he breathes, and remembers suddenly, too clearly Lukas’ hitched breath against him the night he found out about Louis — so long ago, was that really the last time? “Lukas, I’ve got it, I’ll take care of it.”

Lukas nods stiffly and stands up. He looks around the room for a second, lost, and then rolls his shoulders, crawls onto the bed. If he were alone Basti’s sure he’d pull the covers around him, but as it is he only lays there and stares unblinkingly at the wall, cheek pressed into the pillow.

Basti swallows and looks back at the computer. They both look false in the video’s thumbnail, mouths half-open in speech, and it hits Basti, then, that this is it.

If he posts this, they’re over. If he posts this, they can’t take it back, he’ll never feel that band around his arm or see Lukas’ laughing face in their country’s colors ever again. It hurts somewhere high in his chest, that knowledge, lodging between his ribs and his dry throat, and he wants it gone.

He plays the video quietly, only picking up half of their words. Before they filmed he’d already written in the text box _It’s been an unbelievable honor_ but he erases it.

 _Thank you for everything_ , he types instead, and clicks Send.

“Okay,” he says, not really intended to be out loud, but Lukas lifts his head minutely and says, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Basti says. He closes the laptop and crawls up the bed next to Lukas, body turned towards him as he settles against the headboard. “Give me your phone."

Lukas does it without question. It’s been unlocked recently enough that Basti doesn’t have to rack his brain to remember Lukas’ password, and he quickly finds his own profile on Lukas’ Twitter account, retweets the video and then, after considering for a moment, turns off the phone. The messages are already pouring in and from the looks of it, that’s not something Lukas wants to deal with right now.

Lukas scoots in next to him before he’s even put down the phone. Something warm pushes away the hollow feeling in his chest.

Basti draws circles across Lukas’ back; Lukas calls him “Schweini,” so familiar it aches, and sleeps.

 

It doesn’t make the retirement hurt much less to hear that Lukas is finally finishing his round of B-list clubs to head home, but it begins to heal the wound. The picture of them embracing the first time their clubs play each other is on the front of every newspaper, Germany’s golden boys, finally back where they belong.

 

Lukas does well at Köln, all things considered. They play him, and work their attack to let him do what he does best; he looks happier than he’s been in years, since his best days at Arsenal, and Basti knows that it helps that the city has always loved him, too.

It takes him by surprise, then, when Lukas calls him too late at night four months in, sounding on the end of his rope.

“What?” Basti says into the receiver the minute he notices the caller ID. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Lukas says. “Hi. I’m okay. Did I wake you?”

“It’s not that late,” Basti says.

“Oh,” Lukas says. “Good.”

A pause.

“What is it, Lukas?”

He knows he’s right in saying it by Lukas’ sigh, the one that means he was just looking for an excuse.

“I probably shouldn’t ask you for relationship advice, should I?”

“Huh?” Basti says, without thinking.

“I’m fucking everything up and I don’t know what to do about it,” Lukas says, point blank. “It’s unbelievably stupid and makes no sense but I’m worried about Louis and even my sister is just telling me to suck it up and work through it but I don’t know how that goes, I don’t know what to do.”

“Hey,” Basti says, alarmed. “What are you talking about? Can you explain it to me?”

Lukas swallows on the other end.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he says. “I really don’t.”

“Does being back in Germany not help?”

“I thought it would be better when I got back to Cologne,” Lukas says hollowly. “That would have made sense, if it was the distance and just — stress, right, ‘cause I wasn’t playing well and then there was the transfers and Euro and everything around retirement. Back when I first went to England I was Skyping with them every day, but in Italy it was like, twice a month and phone calls on the weekends if I got lucky.”

 _Shit_ , Basti thinks. “Because you were busy, or what?”

Lukas shrugs; Basti can tell because he hears fabric scrape against the phone’s receiver.

“I don’t know. I wanted to see them.” He pauses a minute, and then, “Well.”

“Well?” Basti prompts when Lukas doesn’t indicate an answer.

“I wanted to see Louis. Moni… Things were weird with Moni.”

“What do you mean?” Basti asks, a strange pressure against the inside of his ribs.

“I don’t know,” Lukas says again. “They were just weird.”

“And now?” Basti genuinely likes Moni, was as close to her as a brother for a long period of time, but he can’t bring himself to take her side if it makes Lukas sound like this.

“I just,” Lukas says. “I’m. God, I’m such a fucking bad husband.”

Basti has only heard Lukas sound despairing twice in his life, both after losses that felt like murders; he hears it again now.

“You’re not,” he says. “Stop saying that, you’re not.”

“You don’t know that,” Lukas says softly.

“I think I do,” Basti says. “Twelve years together, come on. You’re the closest thing I’ve got to a wife.”

Lukas laughs brokenly, says “Fuck, Basti,” and quiets. For a few minutes, they listen to each other breathe.

 

It’s mostly unconscious, but Basti thinks they talk more often after that, Lukas more willing to tell Basti things he may not have thought he wanted to know. Basti can’t understand how he can look at their track record — the shit Basti has told him, for God’s sake — and still worry, but, well.

If he thinks about it, yeah, maybe he can.

Either way, having Lukas nearby makes the time go by faster. They still only see each other occasionally but it’s better than waiting on edge for international breaks, and it’s easy, again, no complications, just Lukas & Basti, like Schweini & Poldi but right, this time.

Before he knows it, he turns 33.

The party was Milos’ idea. Some of his invitations go unanswered — the most significant being Sarah, who Basti still texts occasionally but seems well aware of how people would talk if they were seen in public together — but there’s still hordes of people, more than enough for Basti to get pleasantly lost in the crowd, surrounded by old teammates and new acquaintances and everyone in between. It’s wonderfully freeing, being able to wander through the hand-picked crowds with Milos by his side and not have to _think_ about any of it. He kisses Milos twice as much as he normally would, twice as long — it’s his birthday, he reasons, why the fuck not?

Beer flows like water and hard liquor like beer, so Basti really shouldn’t be surprised that everyone gets wasted twice as fast as he’s used to, but after Milos has wandered away in search of his sister and his latest drink has been drained, the crowd’s raucous conversation makes him frown and search for a waitress, absolutely not about to be the sober one at his own party.

His search leads him to the minibar outside, mostly abandoned in favor of the music and lights where it’s warm: to his surprise its sole inhabitant, besides the long-suffering bartender, is Lukas, on his phone, a half-empty glass resting on his knee.

“Are you playing fucking Candy Crush?” Basti says.

Lukas looks up at him and smiles so bright something in Basti’s chest aches.

“Hi, Basti,” he says. “Happy birthday.”

“You’ve said that already,” Basti points out, slipping onto the stool next to Lukas. “Why are you all alone out here?”

“Hmm?” Lukas blinks at him.

“Why aren’t you in the party,” Basti repeats. “You’re just sitting here.”

“I’m keeping Marcell company,” Lukas says, and grins. It takes Basti a moment to realize Lukas is referring to the bartender; he gives the kid a quick wave before turning his attention back to Lukas. More importantly, to the way Lukas’ voice slurs.

“Did you drink tonight?” Basti asks.

Lukas’ head snaps up. His eyes narrow. “Did I,” he says, and then his face clears. “Oh. Yeah.”

“What the fuck,” Basti says admiringly. “Aw, Lukas.”

“You have green eyes,” Lukas says.

“Excuse me?” Basti says.

“You have green eyes,” Lukas repeats, firmer. The issue seems very important to him. “Your eyes are really green.”

Basti stares at him, feeling himself smile wider and wider at Lukas’ serious expression. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, dumbass, I do.”

“Have you always had green eyes?” Lukas asks, now staring avidly at Basti’s face. He reaches out a hand and pokes Basti’s cheekbone, pushes at it; Basti feels him tug the skin under his eye.

“I’ve always had green eyes,” Basti says, pulling carefully away from Lukas’ roaming fingers. “What are you talking about?”

“Your eyes,” Lukas says. He grins at Basti’s expression — something between delight and bewilderment — and then starts to say something else but yawns instead, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You’re finished,” Basti says. “Yeah?”

“I,” Lukas says. “Yeah. I’m done.”

“Good,” Basti says, feeling his own body protest at the late hour. “I’ll take you home.” Lukas grabs his wrist when he tries to get up.

“I can walk,” Lukas says earnestly.

“Good,” Basti says. “Step one out of forty.”

“Shut up,” Lukas says; when Basti attempts to get up again, he follows.

“Luki,” Basti says, drawing out the vowel, “Come on. Stay here for two minutes and I’ll be back.”

“You don’t need to take me home,” Lukas says again. Basti presses a finger to Lukas’ lips — something that, in all honesty, he probably wouldn’t have done without the second few beers — and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“I’m fulfilling my duty as best friend,” Basti says. “Also escaping.”

“Don’t escape your own party,” Lukas says against his finger.

“I can do what I want, it’s my birthday,” Basti says, and walks back into the club before Lukas can raise any more objections.

He finds Milos at the bar with Ana and Holger, listening with his proud-brother face as she regales him with a tale of something or other, probably one of the tennis stories that Milos — and Basti, now — can quote by heart. Most of them involve crazy fans; all of them are hysterical, not so much because of the content but because Ana tells them with her entire body, even more when she’s had something to drink, instantly the center of any group. Basti inches up behind her but his plan is ruined by Milos, who becomes very obviously distracted, and Holger, who just starts laughing.

“Who’s behind me,” she says; Basti pokes the small of her back and says, “Boo.”

“Be quiet, birthday boy,” she laughs, twisting around. “Where have you been?”

“Enjoying myself,” he says, grinning. “You all having fun?” Holger nods enthusiastically, but Milos just sticks out his hand, an invitation. Basti takes it and slides in next to him, arm automatically going around his waist.

Holger shakes his head at the show of affection. “Sickening,” he says. “Picture-perfect, come on.” Basti laughs, knowing his sense of humor, says, “Get out of here, boyo.” Holger claps him on the shoulder and takes his exit; Ana grins at them both and pinches Milos’ shoulder before heading to find some other party to be the life of.

Milos pushes closer into him as they’re left alone. “You’ve been having fun?”

Basti hums, smiles. “Absolutely. You know me.”

“Mmm,” Milos says. “What’s up?”

Though he absolutely did come over there with a thought in mind, Basti frowns at the question. “Who says something’s up?” Milos rolls his eyes at him.

“You came over here like a man on a mission,” Milos says. “I refuse to make any of the girls dance, no matter how often Thomas asks me.”

“Thomas is asking,“ Basti says, and then, “Never mind. Don’t dance with any girls. Or make them dance?”

“‘Work your charm’ was the phrasing used, I believe,” Milos says.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Basti says. “No, I just was going to let you know that I’m walking Lukas back.”

Milos sits up straight, twists around to look at Basti. “What? Why?”

Basti shrugs. “He’s super fucking drunk. Like, drunker than I’ve ever seen him, and he’s not gonna go back with anyone else but I don’t want him walking alone.”

“What’s going to happen to him walking back alone?” Milos says. “Dude’s built like an MMA fighter.”

Basti laughs, then lowers his voice, probably unnecessarily. “He doesn’t drink much,” he says solemnly; Milos takes one look at him and starts to giggle.

“You sound like you’re announcing his death,” Milos says, grinning widely. “Alright, I get it, go on.”

Basti matches his grin. “Thank you,” he says, leaning forward to kiss Milos sweetly; Milos makes a pleased noise and cards a hand in his hair, almost pulls him further in before Basti remembers he has someplace to be. He steps back, tipping Milos off balance until he lets go, the back legs of his bar stool smacking the floor when he falls back into place.

“Taking care of drunk people on your birthday,” Milos says with a mock frown, shaking his head. “Only you, Basti.”

Basti laughs and blows him a kiss before he goes.

 

He finds Lukas where he left him, sitting on the edge of a table and blinking into the flashing lights from the dance floor. They move across his face, sending his eyes into shadow; when Basti approaches, Lukas turns to look at him and looks alien for a heartstopping second. “Lukas,” Basti says quickly, suddenly out of breath, but Lukas smiles and then it’s him again, alcohol creeping into the way he holds his body, hands in his lap, feet barely touching the ground.

“Hi,” Lukas says. Basti reaches out to touch his shoulder and Lukas drops his head against his hand, then sighs.

“You ready to go?” Basti asks, smiling. Lukas nods and looks up at him, face so close, then slips off the table and under Basti’s open arm. It’s been thirteen years and Basti still marvels at how well he fits. Lukas is limber and affectionate from drink and he presses his nose into Basti’s collarbone as Basti ushers them towards the door, the way he moves reminding Basti of Bayern; he used to have this every day, Lukas within arm’s reach.

It’s a lifetime ago. Something in his ribcage smolders very, very quietly.

 

Luckily, Lukas’ hotel is less than a block away from the club, and so they walk, Lukas breathing in the chill air as Basti shivers and pulls Lukas tighter into him. The cold focuses him in the way of the drunk and he catalogues Lukas’ fingers on his hip, Lukas’ breath against the front of his shirt — he doesn’t notice those things anymore, but now Lukas is there and present and so warm against the cold.

The lights from the hotel illuminate them slowly as they approach it; Basti grows aware of the fact that Lukas keeps walking out of line, looking at Basti’s face intently. His cheeks heat up, suddenly self-conscious.

“What are you looking at?” he asks. His voice startles Lukas, who pulls back a little before blinking and pushing back into Basti’s side.

“I always thought your eyes were blue,” Lukas says, finally watching the sidewalk in front of him. “Why did I think your eyes were blue?”

Basti raises his eyebrows, then snorts. “You see your reflection?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Basti says, watching Lukas carefully as he reaches the steps; he keeps his hand at the small of Lukas’ back, but though Lukas is unsteady he’s dogged in his approach to the challenge and keeps his eyes on the ground, all the way up until they reach the safety of the lobby. Basti steers Lukas towards the elevators.

“Which room are you in?” Basti asks. He presses the up button and waits, watching as Lukas digs a keycard out of his jeans pocket and squints at the number.

“Four hundred,” Lukas says. “Four thirty-three.”

Basti laughs, plucking the keycard out of Lukas’ hand and sticking it in his own back pocket. “Got it.” He gets an arm around Lukas’ shoulders just as the elevator door dings, pulls him into it.

They both watch as the doors close. Basti’s barely even tipsy, having forgotten to take a final drink before he went, but he knows just by the way Lukas sways into him that he’s had twice as much as Basti, maybe more.

“You know how much you had?” he asks conversationally. Lukas hums, shakes his head; the door opens. Basti’s about to push Lukas forward but Lukas’ arm snakes around his waist and pulls him to the left.

“I remember where my room is,” he says, Basti watching the liquor-loose curve of his smile with interest. He’s proud, Basti realizes.

“Good job, you got it,” Basti says, delighted by Lukas’ easy satisfaction. They stop in front of one of the first rooms — _433_ , the plate reads — and then Lukas looks at him expectantly. “Right,” Basti says, fishing for the card in his pocket, and swipes it twice the wrong way before the door pops open.

“At least I’m not the only one,” Lukas mumbles. He heads straight for the end of the bed, sitting down; Basti pokes around until he finds the bathroom and fills up one of the hotel cups with water before following him. He sits in a chair across from Lukas and offers it to him.

“Water,” Lukas says.

“Yeah,” Basti says. “Drink up.”

Lukas takes it obediently and does, throat working until the cup is empty, then holds it back out to Basti and wipes his mouth. Basti sets the cup on the dresser next to him, and, after a moment of thought, takes out his phone and puts it nearby.

“I should have known your eyes were green,” Lukas says. Basti turns back to him, startled.

“Are you always like this when you’re drunk?” Basti says. “You’ve been wasted maybe once in our entire lives, Luki.”

“Not true,” Lukas says, totally solemn. “Five times.”

“Three."

Lukas frowns, an exaggerated pout that makes Basti snort, and then smiles at the reaction he elicited.

“I’m really,” he says, something about Basti’s laughter opening up his features, “Yeah, I’m really drunk. Shit.”

“Shit?” Basti says. “No, come on. Shoes off, old man.”

Lukas squints at him. “It’s _your_ birthday. I’m not old.”

“Could have fooled me,” Basti says. “Shoes.”

“Oh my God,” Lukas says, “Oh my God, it’s your birthday. Why are you here? Go back. I’m good.”

“You are a ridiculous drunk,” Basti laughs, and lurches to his feet — whoops, there’s where the last couple beers went — to push Lukas backwards. Though he intends for Lukas to scoot in the direction of the headboard, Lukas just goes down flat.

He lies on his back for a moment, then says, “I’m good. I’m in bed. Go.”

Basti crosses his arms. “No.”

“Basti,” Lukas says plaintively. “Please go have birthday fun. Please. I’ll be — I’m good.”

Basti rolls his eyes, then sits down at the edge of the bed and gets to work on Lukas’ laces; Lukas makes a noise in his throat that could be indignant, but when he tugs his feet towards himself there isn’t any heart in it.

He gets Lukas’ sneakers off, finally. It’s only after he’s thrown them into a heap by the door that he looks up and sees Lukas’ head turned to the side, face buried in the crook of his elbow.

“What’s up?” he asks, poking Lukas’ stomach. Lukas jumps and a smile pushes at his cheek; from what Basti can see of his face, he’s bright red. “Is this the alcohol? What’s with you?”

“Nothing,” Lukas says. “Super awesome.” He gives Basti a thumbs-up with the hand he isn’t using to cover his eyes.

“Stop that,” Basti says. “Don’t do that.” He reaches up and pushes vainly at the underside of Lukas’ arm.

“I’m not doing anything,” Lukas says, muffled.

“Why are you embarrassed?”

Lukas twists, gets his other hand over his face, too. “I’m not embarrassed,” he says, clearly mortified.

“Luka-as,” Basti says. He feels nineteen again; he might be drunker than he thought. “Lukas, come on. Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Lukas says emphatically.

“Why are you acting like you act when you’re embarrassed?” Basti says. “Take your hands away from your eyes.”

“No,” Lukas says. He wriggles upward, kicking his feet off Basti’s lap and poking his toes into the side of Basti’s knee to push himself towards the pillows. Basti follows him, plopping down on his stomach and groaning.

“Stop,” he says, and carefully pries Lukas’ arms apart; slowly, a pink, still-smiling face emerges, eyes looking anywhere but at Basti.

“Why are you torturing me,” Lukas says. Basti pushes at his cheek until he meets Basti’s gaze, then grins down at him.

“It’s my birthday,” Basti says, “I’m allowed.” Lukas purses his lips but doesn’t say anything. “Why are you embarrassed? I don’t care if you’re drunk.”

Lukas scowls. “I’m too drunk. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah,” Basti says, frowning. “Why’d you drink at all? I made sure there was other stuff there.”

Lukas eyes him, then shrugs. “It sounded like a good idea.”

“It always does,” Basti says, feeling a pang of sympathy. “You’re good, though, I promise.”

Lukas presses his hand back against his eyes; Basti pulls it away instantly.

“Lukas,” he repeats insistently, needing him to understand. “Listen. Lukas.”

“I’m listening,” Lukas says, watching Basti press his lips together and then speak.

“Don’t hide,” Basti says. “You’re totally fine. I promise promise promise.”

“I feel like a child,” Lukas says.

“It’ll be gone when you wake up,” Basti says. He has the urge to comb his fingers through Lukas’ hair, a feeling from another time. “Maybe I’m an asshole when I’m drunk but you’re just blushing and giggly and kind. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“No, you’re not,” Lukas says, and obviously _that’s_ the bit of Basti’s convoluted sentence he chose to focus on.

“I am,” Basti says. “That’s not the point.”

“No,” Lukas says. He’s frowning again.

“I’m an asshole to everyone but you,” Basti says.

“Bullshit. You’re not an asshole to—” Lukas searches for a name, eyebrows drawn in concentration, “—Milos. You’re not an asshole to Milos.”

“I probably have been before,” Basti says, shifting on his elbows as he feels his hands growing numb. “Or will be soon.”

“Basti,” Lukas says. “Shut up. You’re not an asshole.”

Basti pokes him, the divot in his cheek that stays even when his grin has faded. “Don’t lie to me on my birthday.” He tips to the side, pushing at the covers of the bed to get them out from under his back, then over his legs.

“Not lying,” Lukas says. He watches Basti. “Are you staying?”

“I was gonna,” Basti says, already getting comfortable. He presses his toes together to warm them.

“You should go back to your party,” Lukas says, carefully, as if rehearsed.

Basti looks up at him. He doesn’t think Lukas means it, but. “Do you want me to go?”

“Do you want to stay?” Lukas asks back. He seems sincere. Basti’s skin crawls.

“Yeah,” he says clearly, so there’s no mistake. “Yes.”

Though he hadn’t realized that was what he was waiting for, Lukas’ answering smile shoots relief so deep into his chest that he feels giddy. Lukas shifts around, gets under the covers; when he settles curled on his side, facing the door still the only way he can sleep, Basti studies the knob of his spine under his shirt.

“Goodnight, green eyes,” Lukas says, after Basti’s reached over and turned out the light.

He doesn’t understand, and then — in that blissful moment, the second before sleep — he does.

 

Lukas’ muffled cursing wakes him up. “Shit,” Lukas says into his pillow, end of his words running into a whine, “Fuck, shit, shit, ow.” Basti rolls over.

“Are you dying?” he asks Lukas’ shoulders. They hunch up in a movement that Basti can’t quite identify as a shrug, and then Lukas pushes the pillow aside with a clumsy hand and presses his forehead into the mattress, fingers tangling in his own hair and pressing down.

“What the fuck,” Lukas says hoarsely. “God.” He pushes his thumb into his temple and Basti sees him squint, corner of his eyes creasing up.

“Head?” Basti says, wincing sympathetically. Lukas makes a noise that Basti thinks is supposed to agree with him, then kicks a foot out from under the covers in the vague direction of the floor.

Basti watches as Lukas slowly worms his way to the edge of the bed, then sits up, head immediately dropping down to his hands. He groans dramatically.

“That would be the hangover,” Basti says, twisting his lower body up until he can poke the small of Lukas’ back with his toes. Lukas groans again, then sticks a hand behind him to blindly swat at Basti’s foot. Basti laughs, pulls his blanket tighter around him. His own throat is dry and he’s sure his head will throb when he moves but all in all, he’s been much worse off; Lukas, on the other hand, well.

“I definitely,” Lukas says, then his voice breaks. He starts again. “Definitely gonna be sick. God damn it.”

Basti knits his eyebrows. “Okay. Bathroom, yeah? You need help?”

“I can die on my own,” Lukas says, and stumbles the second he gets to his feet, catching himself on the wall. Basti sits up, worried.

“You got it?” Basti asks. Lukas waves his hand ambiguously and lurches forward, finding the bathroom with eyes focused on the floor. Basti hears the click of the light switch and then the toilet lid hitting the ceramic bowl right before a sound that makes his insides clench.

Basti’s concern overtakes his desire to sleep and he sighs, then throws off the cover, looking down at his rumpled clothes with resignation. “Where’s your suitcase,” he calls to Lukas, scanning the room. Lukas makes a loud, irritated noise; Basti slips out of bed and almost trips over the offending item. He picks up one of the few T-shirts dropped haphazardly around it, unbuttons his by-now-ruined dress shirt and slips Lukas’ on in its place, then heads towards the bathroom.

Lukas is kneeling on the tile in front of the toilet, hand on his forehead. He gives Basti a shaky smile when he enters. “Think I had too much?” he says, voice even deeper than usual and audibly scratchy. Basti chuckles.

“I guess you did,” he says, leaning against the doorframe. Lukas shifts closer to the porcelain and Basti watches the back of his shirt ride up, makes himself drag his eyes away. Though he’s seen Lukas in what seems like every possible situation over the years, this is a new one: normally it was him curled up on the bathroom floor while Lukas patted him awkwardly on the head and offered to lie to their coaches about Basti’s predicament. He never did, but that was probably because Basti never asked him to.

Instead, Basti gets him a glass of water, leaning to put it on the lid of the tub when Lukas waves it away, and then rummages in the bag on the counter, knowing Lukas carries around an ungodly amount of painkillers like any other footballer on Earth.

“Augh, fuck,” Lukas groans when he hears the bottle shake, “Basti, whatever you’re taking, I need some.”

Basti twists open the bottle, then washes down a handful of pills as Lukas stares up at him balefully. He can’t help but smile, grabs a bottle off the counter before kneeling down next to Lukas, settling against the bottom of the sink with a groan.

“It’s Advil,” he says, “But you shouldn’t take it until you’ve stopped puking.” Lukas nods, but the movement seems not to have been a good idea — the color drains out of his face and he leans forward again, eyes squeezed shut. “Shh,” Basti says quietly, rubbing Lukas’ shoulder.

“I remembered why I don’t drink,” Lukas says eventually when his stomach has settled down, although he’s still sitting on the floor, back against the tub, considering the bottle of Advil in his hands. Basti hums, last of his own hangover faded into a dull pressure in his temples.

“Did you have a good birthday?” Lukas asks, finding Basti’s thigh with his toes, pushing up underneath — a habit remaining from his childhood, Basti thinks, a way to get attention without having to ask. He did that when they were younger, too, butting his head into Basti’s shoulder when he wanted a smile but didn’t need words.

Basti watches Lukas playing with his ankle, says “Yeah, I did.” He hears Lukas chuckle. Lukas’ big toe scrapes against the knobby bone on the side of his foot, and Basti kicks into it until Lukas traps his ankle between his feet.

“Gotcha,” Lukas says, grinning. Basti rolls his eyes. Someone knocks at the door.

What the fuck, Basti thinks. It’s the _morning_.

He raises an eyebrow at Lukas, who shrugs his shoulders, — “It’s your room,” Basti says, but hauls himself up anyway — and then pads towards the door, thankful he had the presence of mind to keep his clothes on that night.

In hindsight, he doesn’t know who he expected to see.

“Morning,” Milos says.

Basti blinks. “Hi. Good morning.”

Milos smiles, both hands in his pockets. “I was going to ask Lukas if he’d seen you, but I guess I answered my own question.”

Basti frantically thinks back to last night, the blurry memory of telling Milos where he was going. “Did I say I was coming back?”

Milos raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, you did,” he says, reaching out to touch Basti’s side; Basti puts a hand over his and smiles apologetically.

“Sorry,” Basti says. “I forgot.”

Milos laughs and pushes forward, both arms now around Basti’s waist, and Basti winds his arms around his neck, hopes they’re still blocked by the door. “That’s your right, birthday boy,” Milos says into his ear, voice fond, then kisses his cheek. “I just wanted to check up on you.”

“I’m good, Milos,” Basti says, squeezes his shoulder before pulling back. “I’ll probably shower here and get back later today, okay? Lukas has to leave tomorrow,” he says, ignoring how wrong it feels to say with Milos’ arms around his waist.

“Sure, babe,” Milos says, smiling, always smiling, and leans forward, but Basti can’t stomach it, not with Lukas’ name so close to his tongue, so he puts a hand on Milos’ chest before he can get any further.

“I still taste like puke,” Basti says apologetically.

Milos hums. “You should fix that before you come home,” he says, and kisses Basti once more on the cheek before pulling away entirely. “See you later, then, Basti. Love you.”

“Love you,” Basti says, and shuts the door behind him.

The tiles are cold under his feet when he walks back into the bathroom. Lukas hasn’t moved from his place on the floor.

“How did he know what room I’m in?” Lukas asks. Basti shrugs, kneeling next to Lukas’ legs, then slumps against the wall.

“I probably told him last night,” Basti says as Lukas turns the Advil over in his hands, pills rattling inside.

“Yeah,” Lukas says, and then, “You never threw up.”

Basti wonders idly why he ever tries to get things past Lukas — with Lukas’ eyes on him, tired but sharp, the half-smile Basti and few others know he wears when he’s worried flickering on his lips, he wonders why he even wants to.

“It’s easier than saying I don’t want to kiss him,” Basti says.

Lukas watches him for a moment. He tilts his body to the side to reach Basti’s ankle, then pulls it towards him with both feet. Basti follows, pliant.

They sit with their legs intertwined until the tile begins to ache underneath them, and then longer.

 

Though Basti doesn’t realize it then, Lukas goes back home a day and a half later and quietly works out divorce proceedings with his tired wife. He finalizes it in Poland, too far away for Basti to touch him the night he calls, troubled and raw and exhausted of the steady, weighing passage of time.

 

The disquiet lingers. Basti ignores the shift that takes place wholly without him. By the end of the year, he’s waking up in bed, rolling over and facing Milos with the wrong name on his lips.

He swallows. The firm conviction that he would turn around to see Lukas fades slowly in the back of his mind.

He stumbles out into the hallway, finds his way to the bathroom: presses his hands over his mouth and stares at the frightening familiarity of his wide-eyed reflection in the mirror.

 

The months press on. He very pointedly doesn’t think about it.

 

It’s Ana that notices that something’s wrong, though she doesn’t land quite on target. In a middle of a date night they’ve scheduled precisely for maximum paparazzi exposure, she shakes her head and catches Basti’s hand in the middle of a story, smiling at his baffled expression. 

“Listen, I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Ana says. She pats the back of his hand on the table, awkwardly, to settle it.

“Yeah?” Basti asks. “Sure, whatever, okay.” He pulls her plate by the rim to give himself better access to the fries she seems to have no desire to eat, and when she doesn’t continue her sentence, looks up. “What?” 

She’s watching him with a careful expression that sets him on edge. He narrows his eyes, says, again, “What?”

Ana holds his gaze for a moment, and then sighs, shrugs her shoulders. “How’s Lukas?”

Basti stares at her blankly.

“How’s Lukas?” She repeats the question, suddenly very interested in her food.

“Um,” Basti says, bewildered. “Fine, I guess? Why?”

She looks up, eyes darting back and forth, searching his face for something Basti can’t identify.

“No reason,” she says eventually, but the pause is much too long for Basti’s comfort. He swallows, trying to ignore the way his heart sped up at the question.

“Is this because of the divorce?” he says; it’s the only possible reason he can think of for her curiosity, though he wasn’t aware they had ever even spoken to each other. Her head jolts up.

“Divorce? What, no, what divorce?”

 _Shit_. Basti backpedals quickly. “Never mind. I just thought,” and then Ana interrupts him and says, “Is he getting divorced?”

Basti hopes silently that Lukas will forgive him this lapse in confidence, then says, “Yeah, uh, he already is. I thought maybe the media had finally caught on and that’s why you were asking.”

“He’s already divorced?” Ana sits up straighter. “Basti, how long has he been divorced?”

Basti shifts, unnerved by her interest. “A couple of months.” September 26, actually, five weeks prior, but since he shouldn’t know the exact date he keeps his mouth shut.

“I thought you had mentioned that they’ve been together for ages,” Ana says. Her voice is quiet, and she’s leaning back in the seat, her food forgotten. Basti watches the bob of her upper arms as she folds and unfolds her hands.

“They have,” Basti says. “Long as I’ve known him.”

“Long as you’ve known him,” Ana says.

“Yeah.”

“Why’d he divorce her?”

There’s something in her voice Basti doesn’t like, some sudden sharpness. “Who said it was him?”

“Am I wrong?” Ana holds his gaze. “What, did he cheat?”

“Why the fuck would you think he cheated?” Basti says.

She shrugs, eyes on him.

“He didn’t,” Basti says, “He didn’t cheat. Christ.”

“Why, then?”

“None of your business.” It pisses him off, maybe unnecessarily, but that accusing tone leveled at Lukas is not something he ever wants to hear.

“I’m just asking a question,” she says.

“Do you not like him?” he asks, irrational anger on Lukas’ behalf bubbling up in his chest. “He’s a good guy. He’s the best guy I know.”

“Look,” Ana says, “Forget I asked. I wanted to know.”

“Did he do something to piss you off?”

“I didn’t _mean_ anything by it,” she says, snapping back.

He presses his lips together, pulse pounding in his ears. Though the conversation eventually finds its way back to familiar waters, the careful face she wears doesn’t go away.

 

Basti spends Christmas with the Ivanovic’s, a strange but beautiful detour in the warmth of their hometown before he flies back to Munich. The football season drags on, Bayern not struggling but not playing their best, either, disappointingly unmemorable, and he wonders what it is that he’s missing.

Lukas comes down on a long weekend in March, still chilly enough that he’s red-cheeked when Basti picks him up from the airport. Basti knows just from looking at him that he’s also glad for the break; though he’s not up-to-date with what’s happening in Cologne, Basti knows him well enough by now to realize that the bags under his eyes come from a wholly different source. He watches Lukas’ shoulders loosen as he walks into Basti’s house and feels a certain sense of pride.

“Where am I sleeping?” Lukas asks, duffel bag temporarily dropped at the bottom of the stairs.

“Wherever you want,” Basti answers. He finds Lukas’ luggage in the middle of his floor later that night, heading up to shower while Lukas watches talk shows on mute, sprawled across his living room couch. They crawl into bed at different times but there’s a comfort to it, just like there was on the national team, falling asleep to tired _good night_ mumbles and later, the quiet rumble of Lukas’ snoring next to him.

 

Basti wakes up blearily at a time significantly earlier than he should, vaguely aware that he’s freezing but much too tired to do anything about it. Shivering, he pulls the thin blanket up higher, presses his eyes shut and chases the tail end of whatever dream he was having, something that he remembers being very interested in, and also not cold.

He’s almost asleep again when he feels Lukas murmur behind him and roll over. He holds on to the blanket, aware that Lukas has a habit of snatching them from him in the night even though he’s always roughly the temperature of a furnace. Instead, though, Lukas just lays on his back for a moment before sliding out of bed. Basti can hear him padding across the hardwood floor, figures he’s going to the bathroom and takes the opportunity to pull the covers tighter across him.

He sucks in a breath when Lukas climbs back in a moment later and tosses a blanket over him, smooths a broad hand over his shoulder and then settles back down. Basti can feel the warmth emanating from him in waves. From the way the bed dips, he thinks if he rolled over, he’d be pressed against him.

He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing.

 

So it was months — maybe years — that he’d been ignoring it, then; that he’d been biting his tongue and looking away from the slow rebuilding. He wanted so desperately to be better than this.

Lukas kisses Basti’s cheek on his way out the door, back to his old house, empty of wife or child; Basti waits until his car is safely out of sight and texts Milos, _When do I see you next?_

 

Basti’s never had to break up with anyone before. With Sarah it was mutuality, with Felix there was good reason. How can he even explain this? Their relationship isn’t failing; Basti isn’t even falling out of love.

There’s just this lingering feeling, this aggravated waiting eternity that crests into a swell whenever Lukas says his name. Though Basti’s track record with relationships isn’t exactly something he can be proud of he’s still smart enough to know that he can’t ignore this, and Lukas —

Lukas isn’t going away.

Basti makes plans to meet Milos an hour outside of Munich, a convenient stop on Milos’ way to Switzerland for the week, and wonders why he still feels sick if this is the best thing for him to do.

 

“Where are you?”

“Room 2A, or 02A, or something. A 2 and an A. You see the big Paulaner ad?”

“No, where?”

“The giant beer on the wall. Are you in the main hall? It’s right there.”

“Oh, yeah. Wow, that’s my face. Where do I go from there?" 

“Right.”

“Going right.”

“Keep going and find the 2 and the A.”

“None of these have numbers.”

“Keeeeeep walking.”

“Oh, shit, found you.”

“There you are,” Milos says as Basti pushes open the door to the quiet waiting room. “It’s really not that hard to find.”

“I got lost,” Basti grumbles. “All the doors look the same.”

“There aren’t that many,” Milos says pointedly; he embraces Basti briefly and kisses the side of his mouth before leaning back against a table by the wall, surveying him. “I meant to bring you something from Bern, but I ate it.”

Basti smiles — forgets, for a moment, why he’s there. “I’m sure it would have gravely violated my diet plan, anyway.”

“You violate that all the time,” Milos says.

“I do,” Basti says, watches Milos’ grin. God, he’s not going to be able to go through with this.

“Ana’s playing in the summer, I’ll get you there then,” Milos says airily. “You’ll see the light.”

“Summer,” Basti says. “Wait.” It’s too fast, too much; the ease of his words and the distressing modesty of their setting, knowing what he’s about to do. “Wait, just, before you."

“Hmm?” Milos looks up at him, unaware of the turmoil in Basti’s head, the upsetting lurch of his thoughts from point A to point B.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Basti says. The words catch in his throat involuntarily. Milos stares at him.

“Do what,” Milos says, slowly.

“I can’t,” Basti says, breathes in deep, and continues. “This. This is never going to be fair to you.”

“What are you talking about,” Milos says, his mouth drawn in an ugly, heartbreaking way. Basti can’t look him in the eyes.

“Milos,” Basti says.

“Are you talking about us?”

Basti nods, looking away, cowardly but all he can do.

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Basti steps back, involuntarily, unprepared for what he should have said himself. He breathes in deep, then says, “Yeah. Yes. To — put it that way. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Milos says nothing, eyes gone wide. He grips the table behind him like he’s looking for a handhold, and a juvenile, idiotic part of Basti’s brain can only think _don’t look at me like that, don’t look at me like that_.

“I love you,” Basti says, his own hand jumping to his throat when his voice cracks. “I do, I really do. I just. I can’t do this to you.”

“You love me, you just said,” Milos says. “Please. Please stop talking.”

“No, no, I won’t,” Basti says, the words tumbling out of his mouth too fast. “Listen. Can you listen?”

“Basti,” Milos says, voice breaking.

“I can’t give you enough back in this,” Basti says. “I don’t have that. That capacity. I tried and I tried and I thought I had it, for a while, but I don’t. And I won’t — I won’t do that.”

“What capacity,” Milos says. He’s pushed his overgrown bangs up, fingers tangled in his hair, loosely pulling. “You’re not making sense.”

Basti bites his tongue, tasting rust, not wanting to say the word _love_ out loud.

“You need to explain this right now,” Milos says, voice low. “Basti, I’m so lost. What capacity?”

“To love you enough,” Basti says.

“If you love me now, that’s all I need,” Milos says, eyes wide, and no, no, no, not again, not again.

“ _No_ ,” Basti blurts, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. “No, God, this has happened before. That’s the worst thing you can do to a person, I won’t do that to you.”

“You’re trying to quantitate love,” Milos says. Shaky.

“I’m telling you what I feel,” Basti says. “I want you to understand this, I really fucking do. But I have to do it whether or not you get why. For my sake and yours.”

“Don’t give me that self-martyring shit,” Milos says. Basti looks at the hunch of his shoulders, his tight back, and fuck, he’s angry, when’s the last time he saw Milos angry?

“I’m trying not to,” he says. “I’ll go, I’ll go, I don’t want to drag this out. I wanted you to understand.”

“Well, I don’t,” Milos says sharply. “You said you loved me ten minutes ago, and now this?”

“I,” Basti says, “Yeah, and I meant it, but it’s not—“

“It’s not enough, I know, you said.”

“I’m so sorry,” Basti says, the most useless words that have ever come out of his mouth.

Milos closes his eyes, his mouth drawn into a thin line. Enough time elapses for Basti to count one through twenty on the ringing pulse in his ears.

“Okay,” he says finally, looking up. There’s something shuttered behind his eyes that scares the shit out of Basti.

“Okay, what?” Basti says, not daring to breathe.

“Okay I believe you,” Milos says. “That you’re doing this out of some sort of — some sort of misguided sense of honor, or honesty, or other bullshit.”

“Honesty,” Basti says. “It’s honesty.”

“Yeah, Basti,” Milos says, “Okay. But if this is. If you’re doing this because you think it’s easier on me, it’s not.”

Basti swallows, gut rolling, trying not to put a name to the heady way his breath halts as his throat lurches and constricts.

“We can still work it out,” Milos says, though Basti doesn’t hear hope in his voice. “I’ll listen if you talk to me, I promise, we would figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Basti says quietly.

“Then go,” Milos says. “If you can’t stay, you need to go.”

A beat. A sense of finality settles over the room like dust.

“I’ll see you, Milos.”

Milos looks away. Basti presses his thumb to the side of his throat, feels the soft persistence of his heart, and goes.

 

The doubts start the minute he leaves, no less ruthless for their inevitability. He should have tried harder, been kinder, waited longer — what if it would have lasted? What if his relapse is temporary, and in a few months he’ll be back to Lukas’ uncomplicated friendship, just with an empty space where his boyfriend should be? Milos was young. Milos trusted him. Milos spent the best years of his life with Basti just for it to end up like this, and Jesus, he’s never thought like that before so why is it starting now, when he finally tries to do something right?

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel all the way home, and he keeps the radio on loud enough that he can’t hear his worries echoing around the passenger seat. When he pulls into his driveway he feels separate enough from himself that he can pick up his cell phone from where he abandoned it on the dash and stare, unfocused, at his reflection on the blank screen.

Basti blinks. His reflection stares back at him. With a groan, he presses a code into his lock screen and finds Lukas’ name: _Fuck this_ , he types, and clicks Send before he can think better of it. He flings his cell onto the porch on his way to the backyard, not bothering to watch where it lands or check if his message sent.

There’s a football on the ground as always, though he doesn’t come back here often at all. Its half-deflation infuriates him; he kicks it as hard as he can, but it bounces off the side of his garage and plops sadly back at his feet.

He kicks it again. Same low arc, same muffled thump against the brick, same dull hit on the ground and too-slow roll to where it began.

Again. And again, and again, and again, though his precision is wasted as the ball grows less firm with every kick. Once he gets the timing right he doesn’t have to keep his eyes open, just a shift of weight, muscle memory, wait for it to come back to him. The papers have always made their jokes but sometimes he wonders if parts of him really have become machine.

He doesn’t know how long he goes but he keeps kicking until his legs hurt and his breath comes short, and waits — not patiently, but keeps the routine, keeps it going — until the inevitable fuck-up.

His eyes fly open as he lands on his ankle wrong, and when he winces, he hits the ball with his toe, not the side of his foot. It spins into nothingness, bouncing over and down the back of his garage. He follows the motion and sinks to the ground.

The grass in his yard is different than that of the pitch, well-cut but not well-kept. If he digs his fingers into the soil it breaks easily, crumbling into his hands, little stones pushing into the web between his fingers and the soft part under his nails.

Basti looks at the holes in the ground where his hands used to be and resists the sharp urge to throw up what little he ate that day.

“Alright,” he says out loud. He doesn’t know who told him that saying things can make them true. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

The amount of effort it takes for him to stand up and make himself move is staggering, but he manages it, wavering only slightly on his feet before turning towards the porch. He can see the small outline of his phone on the wood slats where he flung it, and it dawns on him that he could have cracked the screen, throwing it around like that. He snorts, ascending the stairs slowly. Wouldn’t that be just his luck.

The phone’s intact when he picks it up, but he does have three missed calls and four texts, all from the same person. It makes him feel cheap and sick, running to Lukas like this so soon after what he did to Milos; for a split second Basti considers turning off the phone and burying himself in bed until someone hauls him out by force.

Instead, he unlocks the screen and stares at that stupid selfie, Lukas’ smiling face.

_Poldi 02:43_

            You ok?

_Poldi 02:45_

            Basti hey

_Poldi 2:48_

            What happened

_Poldi 02:50_

            Pick up the phone

Basti types out something that barely counts as a reply and watches the screen blankly until Lukas’ tone chimes.

_Poldi 03:02_

            Is this milos? or something else

_To: Poldi 03:02_

            Yeah

_Poldi 03:03_

            Are you okay?

_To: Poldi 03:04_

            Stupid question

_Poldi 03:04_

            Yeah sorry. Still though?

_To: Poldi 03:05_

            It’s just so stupid

_To: Poldi 03:05_

            So so so so stupid

_Poldi 03:06_

            Can u talk?

_Poldi 03:09_

            Basti come on

_Poldi 03:11_

            Schweini.

_Poldi 03:12_

            Schatzi

_Poldi 03:13_

            Haaaaaase

_Poldi 03:15_

            Basti answer the phone.

He gives in after Lukas’ third pet name, finally having dragged himself inside. He doesn’t turn on any of the lights and finds his way to his couch with his arm out in front of him like a blind man. Even when he’s gotten settled, head on a throw pillow and phone blinking comfortably from his chest, he still feels nauseous.

It’s not something he expects to go away, but he presses the palm of his hand under his ribs nonetheless, wishing for solid ground.

He breathes in, reaches for his phone and dials Lukas’ number, barely has to wait for it to ring.

“There he is,” Lukas says warmly, finally. “Hey, Basti.”

“Mmm.” Basti closes his eyes; he sounds so close. “Hi.”

“Still alive.”

Basti wiggles, kicks the blanket at the end of the couch up until he can grab it and pull it over him. “I am.”

“Good,” Lukas says, “That’s good.” He pauses for a moment, and then says, “Look, if you don’t want to talk, I get it.”

“Yeah, I,” Basti says, “Don’t think I can right now.”

“Should I go?”

“No,” Basti says quickly, though he’d have recognized any real uncertainty in Lukas’ voice.

Lukas hums. Basti can imagine him too well, his big bed and his T-shirt sheets, probably curled around his pillow in that way he never admits he does and staring at Basti’s face on the lighted screen. “I’m sorry I’m not there,” Lukas says.

Basti cracks a smile at the sincerity. “You don’t want to be here for this.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Lukas says amusedly. They go silent for a moment, not really needing words, and then Lukas says, “How do you feel?”

Basti shuffles on the couch, tugs the blanket closer around him; he’s cold, stomach still rolling, but always happy to be hearing Lukas’ voice. Tired and shitty,” he says, “But I’ll be okay."

“You will be,” Lukas murmurs. “Eat something and then sleep as long as you can, alright?”

Basti chuckles, just barely. “When did you become my dad?”

“Since I became a dad,” Lukas says pointedly, “And since you started ignoring your body’s actual needs to talk to me until three AM.”

“You weren’t ordering me around when we were twenty-two,” Basti says, but hauls himself off the couch anyway.

“Maybe I should have been,” Lukas says as Basti pads out to the kitchen, starts rummaging around in his cabinets for anything vaguely resembling sustenance. “We were definitely talking until three AM back then.”

Basti smiles at the memory. “To the chagrin of my teammates, yeah, I remember. Anything I fucked up back then I blamed on you.”

“How dare you,” Lukas says archly, and then continues: “I did the exact same thing.”

Basti pulls out a box of müsli from above his microwave, figures that being post-breakup justifies it. He puts Lukas on speaker as he gets the milk, says, “I can’t believe anyone ever dealt with us.”

“We were pretty bad,” Lukas agrees. “You’re eating müsli at three AM, aren’t you?”

“If I say yes will you yell at me,” Basti says, mouth full

“Mmm,” Lukas says, “I would if I thought it’d help.” Basti has the urge to stick his tongue out but remembers that Lukas can’t see him.

He munches on the müsli for a moment. Lukas stays silent, although Basti can hear his breathing, and when Basti clinks the dishes together to wash them and put them away he hears Lukas sigh in exasperation.

“Don’t you dare say ‘finally’,” Basti says, “That took five minutes maximum.”

“Alright, alright,” Lukas says; Basti knows he’s raising his hands in mock surrender. “Feels like longer over here.”

Basti hums, rinses out the bowl and puts it upside-down on the counter to dry. “When are you coming in town, by the way?”

“Don’t know,” Lukas says. “Next time there’s a break in games, I guess, though I have to take Louis to Moni’s next week.”

“He wasn’t with you for very long,” Basti says. He takes the stairs two at a time up to his bedroom, tries not to think too hard about Lukas with a nine-year-old in the house, staying up way too fucking late to talk his best friend down from a shitty breakup.

“Just a month,” Lukas says. “I got him a tutor, obviously, but he doesn’t like to be away from school that long.

“Is he liking school?” Basti asks, dropping the phone on the bed and finally pulling off his too-tight clothes. He sighs happily at the overlarge T-shirt, worn-in sweatpants combination and crawls under the covers, pulling the phone in after him.

“He seems to be,” Lukas says; Basti hears him shrug. “He’s quiet lately. I think it’s hard for him to move between houses.”

“He obviously wants to see his dad,” Basti says, imagining Lukas’ wry smile.

“I don’t know if that’s enough right now,” Lukas says. “I may just start visiting during holidays.”

Basti bites his lip, not knowing what to say. Lukas chuckles lowly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t talk about that right now.”

“No,” Basti says, “It’s fine, really.”

“Still,” Lukas says. “Go to sleep, give yourself the breakup treatment. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Basti smiles slightly. “Hopefully we’ll both be less melancholy.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says, and, after a pause: “Love you, Basti.”

The catch in his breath is involuntary. “Love you too,” he can still say.

Basti doesn’t hear it, but he knows Lukas smiles, and then the phone clicks off.

 

He doesn’t talk to either of the Ivanovic’s after the breakup. Though he feels their absence acutely, he knows when he’s not welcome, and though he harbors quiet dreams of rescuing a friendship once years have passed and healed the wounds he guesses, realistically, that it’ll probably never happen. Milos’ devastated face lingers in his head; all that hurt came from him. Healthier that he stays away.

That’s why he’s taken by surprise when, one night when he’s fiddling with the stove trying to make food before bed, his phone rings and it’s the tone he set for Ana.

Basti pulls his phone out of his pocket and stares, bewildered, at the caller ID. The green answer button stares up at him accusingly. He makes a split-second decision, bites his lip and presses it, hoping it was a butt dial.

“Hi,” he says tentatively, into the receiver. “Ana?”

She doesn’t answer for a moment, and he’s about to hang up when he hears her voice, “Hey, yeah, Basti.”

“Hi,” he says again.

“Can I talk to you?”

He looks around at his empty kitchen, the setting sun outside his window. “Yeah, sure.”

“Good,” she says, then stops. “So, I don’t know how to say this.”

“Say what?”

She takes a deep breath. “Okay. Um. You and Lukas.”

Basti stares blankly at the faucet of the sink. “Lukas and I what?”

“I need to know why you broke up with Milos,” Ana says quickly. “Look, just. Just say it, okay?”

“Say what?” Basti says. He puts out a hand to steady himself on the counter, pushes back against the corner so he has something against his legs. His brain is working too slowly to connect her words with the implications, instead circling around _Ana is calling me, Ana is calling me, saying Lukas’ name_.

“Basti,” she says, suddenly desperate, and then says, “Were you fucking him?”

Basti’s heart drops cleanly into the pit of his stomach.

“What the hell.”

“Were you sleeping together,” she says, voice breaking. “Just tell me, Jesus.”

“You think we were,” Basti says, “Oh, fuck, you haven’t said this to Milos, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” she says, “And I’m not going to because it would break his heart, but you need, you need to tell me so I can finally sleep.”

“Shit,” Basti says, his body so fucking hollow. “I didn’t touch him, I haven’t touched him, Christ. He doesn’t want me that way."

“You didn’t cheat,” she says as Basti tangles his fingers in his own hair and pulls until it hurts.

“It’s not like that,” he says. All of the air in the room has suddenly disappeared. “It’s not like that.”

“Basti,” Ana says. Her voice has gone quiet; he strains to hear. “You just said he doesn’t want you that way.”

Basti doesn’t answer, doesn’t even know if his voice will work without cracking. She prompts him again. “Basti.”

He tries to take a breath and it comes out more like a gasp, bites his traitorous tongue.

“Were you,” Ana says slowly, piecing things together. “When you were younger.”

“No,” Basti says. “We’ve never. No.”

The way she said it, the severity of her assumption — he doesn’t know what to make of it. There’s something roiling in his gut that he recognizes from the night Lukas found him out, a sick sense of indecent exposure, like he’s shown too much of himself. He won’t be able to cover this back up.

“I thought I was over it,” Basti makes himself say. “I swear to God, I didn’t start things with Milos thinking I still wanted him.”

Ana is silent, though he hears quiet inhaling and exhaling on the other end of the phone.

“Were you ever in love with him?” she says after a moment. “Milos.”

“Yes,” Basti answers immediately. “I was, I promise, I promise. For years.”

“What changed?” she says softly.

 _Nothing changed,_ he thinks, _that’s the problem._ “I don’t know,” he says, because he knows she wants a better answer. “I didn’t want to be someone who lies like that.”

“You broke it off so recently after his divorce, I thought,” she says, but Basti interrupts her.

“No, no, Jesus, the divorce had nothing to do with me.”

“Why did you break up with him, then?”

“I wanted to be honest.”

“That’s it?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Basti asks, head throbbing. He thinks this might be one of the top five worst conversations of his life, possibly top three.

“Look,” Ana says. “You’re telling me that you’ve been — infatuated, or whatever, with Lukas, for what I gather has been a while. Then you suddenly start dating my brother because you think you’re over it, and then break up with him out of the blue three years into what seems to be a fruitful relationship because, what?”

“Because I realized. Because I was trying to be _good_ , that’s what I said,” Basti says.

“It took you three years to realize it?” She doesn’t sound like she believes him.

“Yeah,” Basti says, “‘Look, fuck, I’ve been in love with him for thirteen — it wasn’t an easy decision, okay? And I feel like shit about it all the time, but I tried to do what was best."

“And now you’re just going to wait?” she asks.

“There’s nothing to wait for,” he says.

There’s a long, long pause.

“Alright,” she says finally. “I was going to chew you out for hurting my brother, but now I guess I just feel sorry for you.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. She hangs up the phone, anyway.

 

There are moments where he regrets it so badly he can’t breathe, longing for Milos’ familiar weight next to him or the casual affection of their courtship; the memories almost nauseate him and he wonders if he should have held on, if that was the greatest happiness he’d ever be allowed.

It’s an easy answer. He thinks about that winter night in Munich often, the night that it clicked, but he thinks about before, too, Lukas’ voice over the phone a comfort he’s never quite known how to articulate, and the same thing now, so much like the first time.

He lets it trickle back in, the easy warmth of being in love with Lukas, and doesn’t run away — just keeps it, safe, cradled in his chest.

 

There’s not much of a life in it, he’s sure Ana would say. Sarah, Felix, any of the stern, sympathetic faces who’ve been there from the start: they’d agree. Play football like he always does, come back home to an empty bed and a chaste, unrequited romance over phone lines, grow old pretending it’s enough. 

What they’ve never understood — what _he’s_ never understood, not until now — is that, as it turns out, it is. The months press on, Lukas’ warm, fraternal voice as familiar as his own, and it is.

 

That routine ends in the worst, pettiest possible way. There’s nothing dignified about it, they’re playing an ordinary Bundesliga game against a team barley scraping its way out of relegation places that, all things considered, should be a shoe-in. If he looks back, he wonders if it was his own carelessness that caused him to run too close, not to watch where his heel would land, or if it was simply arrogance and undivided focus. He’s always been told to choose his battles wisely, Jogi and later Pep grinding their teeth when he would throw his body too close to the danger zone without keeping his eyes open to the grand scheme of things, but he’s never been good at half-measures and he’s too good at playing himself like a weapon.

The other guy, in the green kit of a Northern side, goes tumbling down as Basti reaches for the ball and bends Basti’s leg neatly beneath him.

“Fuck,” Basti gasps, and shit — the familiar pull of muscle, far enough that it stings and then farther, feeling himself fall in slow motion, and his weight goes down all wrong, and suddenly the pain is blinding, so sharp he sees stars, can’t even tell where it is, what he did, but Jesus fucking Christ, he registers dimly that he’s on his knees, or on one of them, other splayed unnaturally in front of him, and God, God, God.

He looks down at the twist of his angle, the horrific crook of his knee, not anything a body should be able to do, and feels, distantly, as tears come unbidden. Someone in his own kit bends down next to him, but he can’t see their face through the blur; someone else calls for the doctors, who gather around him like carrion birds. They take him off the field quickly and carefully under the scarlet crowd’s disappointed screams.

They deaden his tongue with painkillers, too heavy for his mouth, but he would have stayed quiet anyway, watching them clasp their hands in that sorrowful way as they tell him what he already knows.

 

He’s not allowed to go home. The slim, stiff bed is uncomfortable and the temporary cast they’ve taped on his leg itches like a madman; he keeps looking at it like something is going to change, like his knee will un-swell and the bandage will slip off and he can go back to practice, go back to the game, heal like it has so many times before, enough that he could keep moving.

Bile rises in his throat when he considers thinking ahead. There’s always hope, and he’s stronger than most, but he knows his body by now.

Phone buzzing from well-wishes, he stares at the muted TV and the nameless faces flashing across it until fear and exhaustion drags him under.

 

No one wakes him. Flowers on the table next to him show that someone’s been by, probably Tobias: he’s done this enough by now to know his teammates will show up as a group in the evening, bring laughter and hope for a speedy recovery, not knowing that this time it’s not that simple. He wonders if anyone’s told Pep yet, or his brother, or his parents. The tone they used with him wasn’t certain, but it was close enough.

He digs the remote out from the drawer to his side and flips until he finds a game. Köln and Hamburg, been over since he was asleep but he recognizes Lukas’ number 10 and is glad, for his sake, that the side of the screen spells a win instead of a loss.

His phone buzzes again, as he guesses it’s been doing for hours. He picks it up and dials without looking at anything else.

It rings for too long; for some stupid reason, Basti feels his breath catch, his eyes water as the dial tone hums on and on. He has to hang up before he hears Lukas’ voicemail and digs his nails into his palm, willing himself not to cry.

A moment, two, as long as he can hold his breath for, then he tries again. This time, Lukas answers on the first ring.

“Hey,” Lukas says, out of breath. “Hey, sorry, just missed you. Basti?”

“Hi,” Basti says. “Good game.”

“Thanks, yeah,” Lukas says.

“I, um,” Basti says, and swallows, but the lump in his throat is too big for him to continue. Lukas doesn’t leave him waiting.

“I saw the video,” Lukas says.

Basti nods, then, realizing that Lukas can’t see him, says, “Mm-hm.”

A pause, then:

“It’s not gonna heal, is it,” says Lukas quietly.

He doesn’t ask how Lukas knows, just presses his palm to his burning eyes, stares up into the light like being blinded would help.

“Basti,” Lukas says, not a question.

“I don’t know what to do,” Basti admits hoarsely, finally. “There’s nothing — there’s nothing I can do.”

“Basti,” Lukas says again, and if he were with him Basti would pull him close and forget his mortality in the warmth of his skin, but as it is, Basti hears him say his name like an anchor and knows that after all this, he’s what’s left.

 

“I don’t want this to be made into a tragedy,” Basti tells his managers, but the media has always does as it wants and he can’t help that they’ve chosen him as a symbol, finds it sickly ironic that he called for attention so much when he was young but it’s only now that he’s bled and broken that they remember him in a way he likes.

Lukas links him articles about himself he doesn’t read, texting him only the quotes that make him smile fondly or laugh, although he knows plenty would make him cry. The well-wishes and messages pour in and he reads them with a heavy heart, hates how many say _before his time_.

Dig your own grave, and all that — it was worth it, he knows. His knee will heal crooked but completely, and he may never run again, but four stars and Germany’s desperate crowds and leading a country to glory will always have been worth it.

He tells himself that, over and over and over again, while he struggles with rehab and consoling journalists and his panicked managers and the disarming, petrifying feeling that he is someone he has never been before.

 

A week after the announcement, Lukas finally addresses his retirement. The fans berate him for his lateness although Basti knows he was just choosing his words.

 _Love you always_ , it says at the end, in five languages they don’t share and one that they do.

He’s glad for the permanence of the internet.

 

Waking up becomes his least favorite part of the day. He treads downstairs in socked feet, easy on the knee, and makes himself coffee although he has nowhere to go and very few people to see. His managers keep their inquiries to the later half of the day, as they say he needs his sleep — he sticks to his pre-injury schedule despite that, determined to be contrary.

He’s always been an early riser. With this injury, there’s no comeback to work towards, and he feels dangerously close to useless.

His managers set him up with a therapist, and although she helps to an extent, he never gets over the feeling that he’s said too much after a session. She tells him to start from the beginning and he talks about 2004.

 

“How are you?” Lukas asks when he finally shows up on Basti’s doorstep, weeks later, unannounced but not unwelcome.

“Tired,” Basti says, smiles either way.

Missing Lukas is a quiet pain; Basti doesn’t realize he’s feeling it until it’s not there anymore, like his bones have been lightened, his muscles unaccustomed to the lack of strain. Lukas fits so easily back into his life, slots right into a space that’s always left open, trustful and waiting.

Tired doesn’t encompass it, not really. There’s something in the way Lukas follows him steadily around his slowed-down life, a certain gentleness, that makes Basti think Lukas knows what he meant.

He learns for certain that night, limping over to Lukas’ seat by the kitchen counter, done with pretending — slides his arms across the glossed granite, outstretched.

Lukas receives him, and Basti doesn’t know why he wouldn’t, but suddenly his pulse in his own ears is deafening. He catalogues his stinging knee, the heavy way his leg feels holding him up, the itching press of the brace, his own short breath. He follows the pain up his torso, past his shoulders, spreading down his arms; Lukas is holding his hands and there, all he can feel is the warmth of someone else’s body.

He lets himself fall forward, rests his forehead on their clasped fingers. Lukas’ nose pushes into the back of his skull, then tilts to the side, his cheek a soft, familiar thing brushing against bristly hair that Basti knows by now must be gray.

Basti listens to his heart even out, wonders if Lukas can hear it, too.

 

It’s strange, and he doesn’t entirely feel comfortable with it yet, his broken body still too obvious of an ache, but it dawns on him, slowly, that this is just him, now. He acclimates to the lack of routine, fills his empty time with anything he can, thankful that the boys at Bayern haven’t gotten tired of him yet. They’re already speculating about coaching, though he can’t do anything physical until six months of rehab at least. He’ll start pushing them after four, probably.

Another World Cup passes by, the first in a long line of viewings with this specific breed of helplessness. Lukas is there with him to curse and yell when Brazil knocks Germany out in the quarterfinals, one final repayment for their glory days; though they just shack up at Basti’s old favorite bar in the city and drink — beer or not — it’s still better than Basti would have imagined it, better than it could have been with anyone else.

Argentina finally get their victory. Lukas heads back home. As a new season gets underway, the first with a new number 31, Basti learns the trappings of his new life and wonders what, exactly, it is that he’s missing.

 

It happens in late January. Basti knows this not just because the new year still sounds foreign on his tongue — _2019, 2019_ , like some future he has only ever imagined, not quite registering that it’s already arrived — but because the nights are still early, still dark, and it speeds up his drinking enough that he’ll swear to God that he’s already buzzed when he hears the news.

They’re not even back home. Lukas had to go to Dresden, something or other for his brand and he drags Basti with him, or rather, Basti volunteers to come, both because he’s got nothing better to do and because the idea that Lukas wants him near still warms him, even when he’s not cold enough to need it anymore. So far it’s been four days of Basti wandering the city, linking up with old friends at new haunts while Lukas sits in meetings or poses for photoshoots, whatever it is that he does.

Lukas is used to him coming back late, then, but either way, that wasn’t at the front of Basti’s mind when he broke off conversation with Schnix to watch the TV that the bartender had just turned up high.

“What’s going on?” Schnix says, turning behind him to look.

“Don’t know,” Basti answers. The newscaster is talking rapid-fire but he can’t catch on in the middle of the sentence, turns instead to the bartender. “What’s this?”

The bartender refills his glass without asking. “Some kid who plays in Spain just came out,” he says.

Basti doesn’t hear Schnix as he starts to talk. His vision darkens at the edges, staring at his now-full drink. Someone next to him whistles in sympathy; someone else laughs.

“Damn, his life’s gonna be hell,” a man Basti vaguely remembers being introduced to says.

“Should’ve stayed quiet,” someone else answers. “No one’ll take him now.”

“They will, if he’s good enough,” Schnix says, then shrugs. “It had to happen sooner or later. Clubs will adjust.”

“Fans won’t,” the second man replies. “He’ll get ‘fag’ spray-painted on his car within the week. Wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped playing.”

“Come on, give the kid some credit,” says the first man.

Basti downs his drink.

“He knew what the consequences would be,” he says, barely recognizing his own voice. He pushes his empty glass toward the bartender, ignores their startled looks at his speech. “He thought about it.”

“I don’t know, Basti,” one of the men says doubtfully. “He looks, what? 22?”

“So because he’s young, he doesn’t get it?” Basti says. The guy raises his hands, mock-surrender.

“I’m just saying, he wouldn’t’ve done it if he knew what would happen to him in a year or two.”

“Aren’t you an optimist,” Basti says. He watches his own hand shake, just barely.

“It’s football,” the man says. “You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I do,” Basti answers. His eyes strain blissfully for focus. “You don’t think we can be better than that?”

“Don’t know if it’s about being better.”

“Whoa, hey,” Schnix says. “This is basically the second racism, you can’t just say that.”

“What?” the guy responds. “No, it’s way different, man.”

“It’s not,” Schnix says calmly. “You’ll change your tune in a couple of years.”

“He’s blazing a trail,” one of the other men says. “Good for him, I say.”

“Maybe he wanted to change the game,” Schnix says.

Basti watches the TV screen, now quiet again, flashing pictures of a dark young man, barely more than a boy, pushing his way through paparazzi towards a shadowed car. Other images filter across the screen: him when he was even younger, in the youth academies; him on the pitch, a midfielder, Basti notices vaguely, from Valencia; him during what looks like it’s earlier on the same day, wearing the same outfit, talking intently with a lean, wide-eyed boy his age, looking warily in the direction of the cameras, his friend’s hand on the small of his back.

“That the boyfriend?” asks Schnix.

“Stupid,” the first guy says.

“Young love,” says the second.

“I hope they make it,” Basti says, and watches the bartender pour him another drink.

 

He barely makes it to the hotel room.

“Jesus, Basti,” Lukas says, only just catching him as he sways inward with the door.

“Be quiet,” Basti says. “I don’t. Be quiet.”

“No,” Lukas says irritatedly. “Fuck, how much did you drink?”

“Enough,” Basti mumbles, makes a beeline for the bed. He probably hates himself more for getting smashed in the first place than for inconveniencing Lukas, but not by much.

“Nope,” Lukas says quickly as Basti moves to crawl up higher. He grabs him by the foot and hauls him back down, pulls off his shoes as Basti stares and tries not to throw up.

“There,” Lukas says, when Basti’s shoes are safely settled wherever he threw them. “Go on.”

Basti doesn’t move. He knows that there’s something he should be doing, but he blinks and sees that terrified, defiant boy’s face and the proud intimacy in a hand on his back and thinks, quite clearly, that if Lukas loved him back he would have done it too.

“What?”

Fuck.

“What did you say?” Lukas says, eyes wide. He stands up jerkily — Basti has to arch his neck to look at him.

“Fuck,” Basti says.

“That’s,” Lukas says, and shit, why does he look so undone? “You didn’t say that,” he says, and backs up until he can’t anymore.

“I said if you loved me back,” Basti says, realizing.

“Yeah, you did,” Lukas says, too quiet. “Why?”

Basti gets the stupid, pathetic urge to cry — another, much stronger, that wants to hit something and scream. He looks down at his hands, suddenly feels as brutally sober as he’s ever been.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were nineteen,” he says, and hopes that whatever they are is strong enough to last after this.

“You’ve,” Lukas says, an awful sound. Basti can’t look at him.

“I tried to keep quiet. It was a stupid little crush, and then it wasn’t, and then.” He exhales, frustrated, digs his nails into his palms hard enough to draw blood. “I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry, and I never said anything, and I should have, I know, but I thought —“

“You thought if you ignored it, it’d go away,” Lukas interrupts, and Basti looks up.

Lukas is frozen in place, white-knuckled fingers gripping the dresser behind him, and he’s looking at Basti like he’s never seen him before.

It only takes him a moment, but that moment is the longest of his life.

Then, with a click, it comes: a dawn that blossoms into a sandstorm, just as it was always going to be.

The last piece of the puzzle falls into place and everything ties it together, foundations into structure into this impossibility trying to crawl its way out of his throat, heady and harsh and strong, almost as disarming as the pounding of his pulse in his ears and his tightening lungs and the overwhelming, unbearable swell of his heart and, and, and — and he can see now. God, he’s been so fucking blind, he can _see._

Lukas has been there all along.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“Fifteen years,” Lukas says, because — Basti knows so well, so _well_ — because it’s all he can do.

Basti watches the world reconstruct around their confessions, this empty room, constant and tender space between them something he finally understands. He smells the alcohol on his own breath and wonders if it will be enough to stop Lukas from kissing him; if they were younger Basti would worry that Lukas doesn’t trust him not to have regrets when he’s drunk, but they both know better, now.

As of this moment, he swears he’ll never regret again.

“So do we want to do this,” Basti rasps, “Or should we wait until I can taste you instead of the vodka?”

“Oh God, Basti,” Lukas says, pleading, steps forward and drops to his knees. “Oh God,” he repeats, and buries his head in Basti’s lap.

Basti leans forward as far as the bend of his back will allow and counts the ridges of Lukas’ spine as he breathes.

 

Though it’s the throbbing in his head that wakes him, Basti later remembers nothing but how similar it was to so many mornings before; staring at the ceiling as his vision focuses, turning his head to the side, catching — in lieu of Lukas’ sleeping face, Basti should have known, not today — Lukas’ tired, steady gaze and simple smile.

He doesn’t have to remember; it doesn’t hit him for a second time. Some things you don’t forget, alcohol and hangover aside.

Lukas doesn’t say anything. He watches Basti with some unbearable fondness, takes in his curled-up knees, his fisted hands, his squint. Basti tries to relax, unconsciously, but Lukas just bites his lip and moves imperceptibly closer.

“Lukas,” Basti says, only word he knows.

“If you turn around, I’ll hold you,” Lukas says softly.

Through the half-haze of the early morning, his creased eyes, the thudding of his temple and wild drumming of his heart, Basti feels something inside him bloom bright.

He breathes in deep. When he turns to the side, a warm hand brushes against his back — careful, at first, or shy, following a cord of muscle from his shoulder to the small of his back before settling on the seam of his hip. Lukas exhales, then pushes forward.

He tangles their legs, then their fingers, grip so loose his own breath could push them apart. Now, with every inch of their bodies against each other a quiet miracle, Basti finds enough strength in his weary bones to pull Lukas closer.

Lukas says his name, reverent, presses his lips to the knob of Basti’s spine.

They sleep.

 

every mouth you’ve ever kissed  
was just practice  
all the bodies you’ve ever undressed  
and ploughed into  
were preparing you for me.  
i don’t mind tasting them in the  
memory of your mouth  
they were a long hallway  
a door half-open  
a single suitcase still on the conveyor belt  
was it a long journey?  
did it take you long to find me?  
you’re here now,  
welcome home.  

\- Warsan Shire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, this has been a trip to write. 
> 
> thanks to all of you for sticking by me as i wrote this, dealing with this terrible update schedule, and sporadically anon messaging me!!!! rly glad to see you all enjoyed this as much as i loved writing it, even though i complained way too much <3 it's been a brilliant experience
> 
> special thanks to my weirdo gf for reading and beta-ing and inspiring me when i got writers block and absolutely refusing to bitch when this took too months longer than planned, you're wonderful and i'm so lucky to have you
> 
> IT'S DONE
> 
> THERE WILL BE AN EPILOGUE BUT IT'S DONE
> 
> MADANACH ON TUMBLR, ANAHAEDRA ON TWITTER, IT'S _DONE_


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It didn't go away, not ever, not really._
> 
>  
> 
> Basti falls in love with Lukas on a bitter-cold Tuesday night as Lukas sips Glühwein from a ceramic mug and wrinkles his red nose in Basti’s direction, illuminated by buzzing golden lights, smelling of laundry detergent and pine. The rest, as they say, is history.
> 
> Written for the Schweinski Holiday Fic Exchange.

There’s a quiet gap in his consciousness, the five-to-ten seconds after waking up where the world consists solely of what is in front of you. Lukas blinks awake and sees the small of Basti’s back, then the back of his legs, walking slowly and not entirely steadily in the direction of the bathroom — places both hands over his eyes, listens to the rattle of a pill bottle somewhere near, and tries to make sense of it.

He rolls over into the warm shape where Basti used to be. His own name in Basti’s voice echoes through his head.

On the other side of the plaster wall, Basti turns on the water and begins to brush his teeth. Lukas, in his distant weariness, makes himself move to the edge of the bed, then stand up.

His own tread is uneven and his eyes are clouded by sleep but he makes it to the bathroom all right, leaning against the doorway and blinking as Basti watches himself in the mirror, the way his toothbrush sticks out of his mouth almost comical. He spits into the sink and runs a cup of water but doesn’t move his gaze.

Lukas takes in his creased T-shirt from the night before, his boxers, his bare feet and messy hair, and knows he remembers: it’s in the way he holds his shoulders, the way he hasn’t looked at Lukas by now, sheepish and shrugging at his own antics from some night before.

Basti rinses his mouth out, spits that into the sink, too.

“How’s your head?” Lukas says into the silence. His voice sounds rough, even to himself.

Basti turns to look at him as if on cue.

“Lukas,” he says, all he says.

Lukas steps forward and presses their lips together.

It doesn’t last more than a moment. Basti’s eyes shut the second before Lukas closes his own; he suppresses a hitch in his throat just long enough to feel the soft touch of Basti’s mouth, cold and chapped and carefully still.

Just that second, then he pulls gently away, brushing his thumbs against the high bone under the skin of Basti’s cheek. He feels Basti exhale, unevenly, against his lower lip.

“Was that okay?” Lukas asks, no more than a whisper. He can’t speak any louder, won’t let himself move far enough away to warrant it, just stands — so close — to Basti and waits as they both wake up. Some unbearable press against the center of his ribcage is making it hard for him to breathe.

Lukas’ fingers are pushed to the side as the corner of Basti’s mouth curls up.

“Yeah,” Basti whispers. Their voices are too quiet in the small room, not quite caught by the echoing tile. The hum of the lighting threatens to drown them out. “Can you just,” he says, and turns his head slightly, so his lips brush the hollow of Lukas’ palm.

 _Anything_ , Lukas thinks.

“Give me a second,” Basti says softly. His fingers find the hem of Lukas’ shirt and fist loosely in the fabric. Lukas nods, swallows.

Basti stands there a moment, eyes closed, not moving an inch, and then slowly spreads his palms flat across Lukas’ hips.

The hitch in Lukas’ breath is much too loud and entirely involuntary.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Basti breathes, mouth splitting into a smile, and then opens his eyes for one earth-shaking moment before hauling Lukas in by the waist and kissing him again.

Lukas holds Basti’s face between his hands and is more than overwhelmed by their bodies against each other, Basti’s hands reaching around his back, not yet searching but holding close. Basti’s smiling so big they can barely kiss and Lukas whispers something against his lips, words he can’t remember in the next second that make Basti laugh, out loud, quick and joyful in an exhalation against Lukas’ own grin.

“Unbelievable,” Basti says, “Unbelievable,” presses a kiss to Lukas’ cheek and then stays there. Lukas winds his arms around Basti’s neck and hums happily, closes his eyes.

When Basti grips Lukas’ hips softly and pushes him backward, Lukas goes without question. If he keeps his eyes closed, arms slung loosely across Basti’s shoulders, he doesn’t have to think at all, Basti’s hands on his waist and quiet breathing in his ear. They don’t stop until they’ve walked out of the bathroom, until Lukas feels the gentle press of the wall against his back.

He leans his head back against it and opens his eyes.

“Hi,” Basti says softly, corner of his eyes crinkling up, the most beautiful thing Lukas has ever seen.

In Rio he wondered how Basti didn’t notice it spilling out of him with every breath he took, all that hysterical, euphoric joy. He hopes Basti can see it now: he can’t keep it under his skin, this brilliant, wonderful, hopeless feeling, this unbearable light.

Lukas runs his thumb over the crease of Basti’s cheek, running from the side of his nose to the end of his chin, and says, “Basti, kiss me.”

Basti says, “God, Lukas,” leans forward and does.

They learn each other. Lukas cards his fingers through Basti’s hair and Basti flicks his tongue against Lukas’ lips until he parts them, runs his hands over the seam of Lukas’ hips, presses in closer when Lukas pulls his arms tighter. He’s a warm, heavy weight, trapping Lukas comfortably against the wall, and Lukas doesn’t want him to go anywhere, ever. He whines when Basti leans back, though they’re close enough that their hipbones still knock against each other; Basti smiles and presses their foreheads together, catching his breath.

“You’re,” Basti says, doesn’t finish his sentence. Lukas kisses the words out of his mouth and nudges him backwards when he laughs, only stopping once Basti hits the edge of the bed and tips back until he sits, looking up at Lukas with the brightest possible eyes.

“I love your fucking _face_ ,” Lukas says, unable to control his grin.

“Get down here, stupid,” Basti replies, and crawls back just enough that Lukas can jump on him, catching his lips and pushing them both into the pillows at the head of the bed. It thrills him, the still-foreign difference between Basti and everyone else he’s ever kissed — Basti’s flat and broad beneath him and when he pulls Lukas in, his arms can keep him there, fingers long and palms wide enough that Lukas feels almost small. Lukas shifts on his knees, presses down enough that Basti can get both arms around him, his shoulders and another at his back, keeping their bodies together.

He opens his mouth gladly, this time, unable to concentrate on anything besides the arch of Basti’s neck for better access and the splaying fingers on his hip, but then something grumbles very, very loudly.

Lukas pulls back. “Was that—“

“No,” Basti says quickly. “Absolutely not.”

“That was totally your stomach,” Lukas says, watching the steady flush of Basti’s cheeks. “Oh my God,” and Basti claps a hand over his mouth but Lukas keeps talking, “No, Basti, come on, that’s cute. Should we, I don’t know, do something?”

Basti frowns pointedly.

“We should keep kissing.”

He emphasizes his argument by pressing his hips up into Lukas’ weight, enough that Lukas’ mouth drops open and he forgets what he was about to say. “Point taken,” Lukas mumbles, leans back in and meets Basti’s grinning lips.

Lukas has kissed Basti’s mouth into pleasant pinkness and gone to work leaving marks the shape of his teeth and tongue on Basti’s neck when he hears the grumble again. He pulls back, ignoring Basti’s whine.

“Basti,” Lukas says, smiling widely. “Do you want to go eat?”

“I want you to keep kissing my neck,” Basti says, strained. His fingers tighten on Lukas’ back. Lukas rolls his eyes and bends back down obediently, bites gently at the juncture of Basti’s neck and shoulder until he squirms underneath him and sighs.

Basti’s stomach growls again. Lukas laughs out loud.

“Shut up,” Basti grumbles, Lukas giggling into his neck. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s hilarious,” Lukas says, shifting backwards until he can rest his chin on Basti’s chest, arms bracketing his waist. “Breakfast is calling you.”

Basti frowns at him but cards his fingers through Lukas’ hair, expression softening when he sees the way Lukas refuses to give up his grin. A faint blush tints his cheeks.

“Let’s go eat,” Lukas says, and leans forward to press a deliberate kiss to Basti’s breastbone, just because he can.

“Lukas,” Basti says, exasperated. He wriggles underneath him, some half-show of protest; Lukas pushes forward and nuzzles the inside of his neck, letting Basti’s arm hook comfortably around his shoulders.

“Basti,” Lukas responds. When Basti hums, questioning, Lukas tilts his cheek into the vibration of his vocal cords.

He considers it, for a brief moment, and wonders if there’s some hesitation he should feel, some gut fear that this isn’t real, isn’t happening. He waits for it to bubble up in his chest but it doesn’t come.

Lukas pushes himself up on his elbow, Basti’s hand sliding down to the small of his back, and says, “I’m really hoping that you’re gonna want that energy later.”

It takes Basti a moment, and then:

“Jesus Christ--” Basti says, breaking off his own words with a delighted laugh and tugging Lukas back down on top of him. “You shit, you shit,” he repeats, presses up and kisses Lukas eagerly, happily, warm, wet lips against each other and smiles threatening to get in the way.

“Yeah,” Lukas says breathlessly, when they’ve finally broken for air. “Yeah, me too.”

Basti grins up at him. His thumb rubs lazily against the jump of Lukas’ shoulderblade, that dip of muscle, and he turns his face into Lukas’ hand when Lukas traces the crease at the corner of his eye. Five-plus years of keeping still, finally something he can do. 

“So,” Lukas says. “Breakfast, then?”

“You say things like that and now you expect me to leave the bed,” Basti says, pulling Lukas closer in.

“Should I wait until your stomach makes more loud noises?”

“Can you shut up?” Basti says, smiling at Lukas in a strange, wonderful, not entirely unfamiliar way, and Lukas forgets the question entirely trying to memorize that look.

He thinks about it, and marvels. He thinks about the press of their bodies against each other now, Basti’s arm slung across his back and his chest against Basti’s side, Basti’s knee tucked just barely between his own, a whisper on his lower stomach where Basti’s knuckles rest on his own hips to brush it. He thinks about Basti’s drunken confession and his lost look and five years, fifteen, of not having this, of being too scared or too stupid or too blind, and then Basti’s hands on a half-empty bottle of aspirin and early morning eyes like the ones Lukas has always known.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Lukas says, unaware he’s speaking out loud until the words come out of his mouth.

“What makes sense?” Basti asks.

“Us,” Lukas says. He taps a finger against the concave of bone at the hollow of Basti’s throat. “This.”

Basti turns to the side, looks at Lukas more fully. After a moment of hesitation, he leans in and presses their foreheads together, cups Lukas’ cheek in his hand.

“Like the rest of it,” Lukas says. He feels himself smile.

“Like the rest of it,” Basti agrees, and kisses him until Lukas laughs out loud, scrambles to his knees and pulls Basti up with him, realization bubbling up within him that this, right now, is his life.

“Breakfast,” Lukas says, obstinate and joyful and hooked on Basti’s unbelievable grin. “Breakfast, come on. I’m taking you out.”

“You’re taking me out?” Basti says. “Hang on a second,” but Lukas is already out of bed and rooting in their suitcases for clothes, tossing jeans at Basti with one hand while finding a sweater with the other. Basti kicks his legs over the side, shivering briefly at the cold. “Why don’t I get to take you out?”

“I got there first,” Lukas says, on his way to the bathroom. He roots around on the counter and brushes his teeth as quickly as he possibly can before darting back in, just in time to see Basti pulling a shirt that he absolutely knows is Lukas’ over his head.

“You dick,” Lukas says, smiling widely.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Basti says. “You seen my coat?”

“Probably on the floor somewhere,” Lukas says. He unplugs his phone and sticks it in his back pocket, his wallet following. The hotel keycard goes in the pocket of Basti’s jacket. “Where do you want to eat?”

Basti shrugs, slipping his shoes on. “You choose.”

“Nuh-uh, man. Up to you.”

“I’ll pay if you’ll decide.”

“That’s not even, what? Basti.”

“I’m not deciding.”

“Basti.”

“Let me pay, then.”

“We’re gonna go to the first bakery we see.”

“Took you long enough. Jesus, Lukas, I’m starving.”

Lukas laughs, like he always does, and Basti closes the door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there you go. beginning of the rest of their dumbass lives.
> 
> thank you all so so so so so so so so so much for this, for your blush-inducing comments (that i SWEAR i intend to respond to one day but i am terrible at) and for your patience as this fic shuffled around and sorted itself out. i know it was a bittersweet journey but i hope this addendum makes it a little less bitter, little more sweet :)
> 
> keep on keeping on, dear readers, and you know where to find me by now!


End file.
